N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu plans to endorse Nikki Haley for president

Sununu plans to attend a town-hall-style event with Haley on Tuesday night in New Hampshire.

Sununu, a critic of former president Donald Trump and a popular governor in a purple state, has been looking for a candidate to endorse ahead of the state’s primaries on Jan. 23. The people familiar with his decision to choose Haley spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The governor’s office confirmed that Sununu would attend the event with Haley in Manchester, N.H., on Tuesday, but his office would not say whether he would make the endorsement.

“I look forward to joining Nikki at her town hall this evening — it’s going to be a lot of fun!” Sununu said in a statement.

Sununu has been campaigning for a handful of Republican candidates in the primary field. He previously indicated that he was looking to endorse one of the governors in race — either Haley, the former governor of South Carolina; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; or former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

On the campaign trail last month, Sununu said Haley has “done a great job.”

“She’s been really pounding the pavement … Her message seems to resonate,” he said.

WMUR was the first to report on Sununu’s endorsement of Haley.

Sununu is broadly popular among Republicans in his state. A Washington Post-Monmouth University poll last month found that 81 percent of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire approve of the job he is doing as governor.

But the poll also suggested a Sununu endorsement could have somewhat limited impact on the presidential race. Fourteen percent of likely Republican primary voters said they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate endorsed by Sununu. Eighty percent said it would make no difference, while 5 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a Sununu-backed candidate.