Seacoast Media Group Endorses Governor Chris Sununu for Re-Election In New Hampshire

The Seacoast Media Group editorial board, which represents New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Herald, Foster’s Daily Democrat, Exeter News-Letter and Hampton Union, has endorsed Governor Chris Sununu for re-election this November

The Seacoast Media Group praises Governor Sununu for having “set the tone for hands-on, compassionate leadership,” writing that “his performance in his first two years in office has been a tour de force” as he has worked to promote bipartisan solutions to improve social services and fight the opioid crisis.

The endorsement of the Seacoast Media Group editorial board further shows that Governor Sununu is the right leader to keep moving New Hampshire forward.

Seacoast Media Group writes:

“New Hampshire is lucky to have a high energy and highly effective governor in Chris Sununu.

His overall performance in his first two years in office has been a tour de force and he has earned the endorsement of the Seacoast Media Group editorial board, which represents the views of New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Herald, Foster’s Daily Democrat, Exeter News-Letter and Hampton Union.

Sununu has set the tone for hands-on, compassionate leadership by, for example, not simply showing up at the annual Child and Family Services sleep out for homeless youth in Manchester, but by actually staying the night and encouraging his commissioners to do the same. By doing this, the governor sent the clear message that teens in crisis are valued and that they have a friend in the state’s top elected office. This was clear moral leadership.

Sununu was quick to address problems that surfaced at the Division of Children, Youth and Families. Acting on the recommendations of stakeholders studying the issues, he and the Legislature increased staffing, decreased worker caseload and he signed into law the first-ever Office of the Child Advocate, appointing Dr. Moira O’Neill as director. At O’Neill’s direction, the state approved funding for voluntary services such as education, counseling and transportation to keep families experiencing significant stress from descending into full-blown crisis.

Also for the children, Sununu pushed hard for full-day kindergarten, and while he didn’t get full funding, or his preferred funding method, he did significantly increase the money the state now contributes to local school districts for full-day kindergarten.

In the fight against the opioid epidemic, Sununu supported the renewal of expanded Medicaid in the state, which not only provides insurance coverage to approximately 53,000 uninsured people, it also provides essential funding for addiction prevention, treatment and recovery services.

Sununu has worked well with the all-Democratic federal delegation to increase opioid crisis funding and we see the merit in his new hub and spoke model for crisis care, which creates nine locations across the state, including Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, where people can receive support either directly or through a “warm handoff” to an appropriate agency or service provider.

We’re excited about his plan to address our state’s nursing shortage, seeking to double the number of nurses in the state by investing in nursing and STEM education as well as increasing the number of in-state clinical residencies and internships.

There’s no doubt the state’s economy is doing well, with record low unemployment and budget beating revenues that have allowed the Rainy Day Fund to be fully funded at $100 million-plus and also allowed for some small property tax relief by directing $38 million to cities and towns for infrastructure projects, including $20 million for locally owned red-listed bridges.

Sununu has been a friend to the LGBTQ community, supporting anti-discrimination protections for transgendered people and signing a bill banning so-called gay conversion therapy.

He has effectively supported efforts to protect citizens from polluted drinking water at Pease tradeport, the Coakley landfill and elsewhere across the state. He continued the efforts begun by Gov. Maggie Hassan’s Seacoast Pediatric Cancer Task Force and we applaud his support for using millions of dollars from the MTBE settlement fund to reduce the risk contaminated drinking water poses to New Hampshire citizens. The people of New Hampshire should be proud of their leaders’ bipartisan efforts to address this public health issue…

Gov. Sununu is an MIT graduate, an environmental engineer and he has run a ski resort. He comes from a politically prominent family and he has the skills and smarts to navigate the most complicated issues facing our state, but he has not lost the common touch. There is no question among the majority of the board that Gov. Sununu deserves a second term in office and we encourage our readers to vote for him Nov. 6.”