When Politico reported that the White House is weighing a primary challenge to Gov. Kelly Ayotte if she refused to back new congressional maps, most Granite State political insiders dismissed it as an unserious threat. After all, you can’t challenge anyone in a GOP primary without a candidate.
Now they may have one: Corey Lewandowski.
On Thursday, Politico updated its story with a report that Lewandowski, the Windham, N.H., resident who served as Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016, “is considering a run for New Hampshire governor.”
When the Politico story hit social media, Lewandowski retweeted it with a comment: “This is newsworthy. Wow.”
It’s no secret that Team Trump is frustrated by Ayotte’s refusal to join GOP-controlled states like Texas and Missouri in creating a GOP-friendly congressional district in time for the 2026 midterms. The White House is making it clear she will pay a political price, at least in Washington, D.C.
But would Lewandowski, who’s teased the idea of running for office in the past, really consider entering the race?
“Everyone says being a governor is the greatest job in politics,” he told NHJournal. “I would agree with that.”
Lewandowski currently serves as a senior advisor to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Ayotte’s poll numbers aren’t at the sky-high levels of her GOP predecessor, Chris Sununu, who consistently ranked as one of the most popular governors in the nation. However, in a state where Trump is consistently underwater by 10 points or more, Ayotte has more fans than detractors, polls show.
The most compelling evidence of Ayotte’s standing may be the fact that there isn’t even the rumor of a serious 2026 Democratic opponent. The political pickings are so slim that the latest UNH Survey Center panel polled former state Sen. Tom Sherman as a potential Democratic challenger.
No Republicans are known to be considering a primary challenge, either.
Leaving the field open for Lewandowski.
While Ayotte’s office declined to comment, Republicans who spoke to NHJournal on Thursday night said they didn’t take the Lewandowski talk seriously.
“Offs,” one veteran of New Hampshire politics texted in response to the story, an abbreviation for an expression of exasperation.
“Wow, the Democrats must really be desperate,” a GOP consultant quipped when told of the Politico report.
Ayotte has made it clear she has no interest in a mid-decade redistricting, and it’s unlikely the White House can pressure her to change her position. While Trump’s popularity has created leverage in states like Indiana, even allies of the president concede that attacks from Trump are likely to make Ayotte more popular among New Hampshire voters, not less.
“That’s probably true,” one Team Trump insider conceded to NHJournal.
Could adding a single Republican seat in New Hampshire make a difference? It’s still unclear if the map changes made this year in Texas and other GOP-controlled states will survive court challenges and be in place by the 2026 elections. And political polling analyst Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, notes that Trump’s current approval level, hovering around 45 percent, makes it extremely likely that Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives.
Unless …
“That number could go up, and every point it goes up dramatically increases the chance of Republicans holding the House,” Olsen said on his “Beyond the Polls” podcast Thursday. “If it goes up to, say, 48 percent, we should probably actually expect Republicans to control the House.
“That’s where the chicanery of the mid-decadal redistricting could make the difference.”
