Can a non-MAGA candidate who favors abortion rights prosper in today’s GOP? We will soon find out if the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, declares his candidacy for president in 2024, which he now says he’s considering.

Mr. Sununu in November won his fourth two-year term as governor by more than 15 points. Yet a poll released last week by the University of New Hampshire shows the governor with only 4 percent support in a 2024 New Hampshire Republican primary. Governor DeSantis leads with 42 percent support, while President Trump comes in second at 30 percent.

In an interview on CNN this week, Mr. Sununu dropped the cagey language he’d been using and answered “yes” for the first time when asked whether he is mulling a presidential run. His campaign committee had already — in December — launched digital ads in the early-nominating states of South Carolina and Iowa. Mr. Sununu has been making the rounds of cable news.

If Mr. Sununu doesn’t win his state’s primary, though, it would be a death knell for his campaign. Mr. Sununu acknowledges that Mr. DeSantis would “probably win New Hampshire right now, without a doubt.”

Mr. Trump is the only officially declared candidate in the race so far, though his former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, has teased her own announcement for February 15. On Saturday, Mr. Trump visited New Hampshire to speak at the state’s GOP annual meeting. Mr. Sununu did not attend the event, though he later called the former president’s speech “very mundane.”

Mr. Sununu is not a Never Trumper — he endorsed the former president twice — but he is open about not wanting Mr. Trump to be the nominee in 2024. He called him “f—ing crazy” at a Gridiron Club roast last spring, and recently said of Mr. Trump, “He’s done his time. He’s done his service. We’re moving on.”

Much of the GOP buzz is on Mr. DeSantis and the economic successes he has presided over in Florida, in large part because he opened the state — and its schools — early during the Covid pandemic. The Sunshine State has attracted hundreds of thousands of new migrants in the last three years, mainly from blue states like California and New York.

If he does throw his hat in the race, Mr. Sununu, like Mr. DeSantis — if he jumps in — will be running on his state’s successes, or what he calls the “New Hampshire Advantage.”

The Granite State is the fastest growing in the northeast, has the lowest poverty rate in the country, is ranked no. 1 for public safety, and the Frasier Institute ranks it the top state for economic opportunity. With no state income or sales tax, New Hampshire is attracting movers from Massachusetts and other high-tax states in the northeast.

“None of this is an accident — it’s the result of smart management, responsible decision making, and putting people first,” Mr. Sununu said during his inaugural address.

Mr. Sununu fashions himself a fiscal conservative, small-government Republican with a “Live Free or Die” ethos. He has overseen the implementation of a school choice program, signed a bill nullifying federal gun restrictions, and touts his early opening of the state during Covid. He is critical of so-called woke ideology but doesn’t wade into cultural issues with blunt force like Messrs. Trump and DeSantis.  

“My argument is the government is not the solution to cultural issues,” Mr. Sununu says.  

A libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, ranks New Hampshire no. 1 in economic and personal freedoms. Florida ranks no. 2.

“His winning message has really been the New Hampshire brand — how you can run an economy, low taxes, stable regulation in freedom,” a GOP political strategist, Dave Carney, tells the Sun. He says the big question is whether Mr. Sununu can raise his profile and the money required for a national campaign.

Mr. DeSantis amassed a war chest of $200 million for his re-election, of which he has $70 million remaining. He’s considered a more disciplined heir apparent to Mr. Trump.

“It’s a younger version. He’s less controversial, but he’s got the same themes,” the director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Neil Levesque, tells the Sun.

During his inaugural address, Mr. Sununu took a thinly veiled shot at the Florida governor, saying, “It’s not right to tell a private business what they can and cannot do…. That’s not leadership, and it’s not conservative. And it is certainly not freedom.”

There are several other non-MAGA potential GOP candidates for 2024, including the Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, and the former governors of Maryland and Arkansas, Larry Hogan and Asa Hutchinson. Two former Trump administration officials, Secretary Pompeo and Vice President Pence, are also considered likely contenders. They are embracing Trump policies while distancing themselves from the man and his claims about a stolen election. 

Mr. Trump benefited from a crowded field in 2016, and he could again. “The discipline is getting out too,” Mr. Sununu says, of candidates who aren’t polling well near Election Day. “We don’t want a crowded field.”

Mr. Sununu’s stance on abortion may also make him an outlier: He supports legalized abortion but signed a ban on the procedure in the third trimester. He calls himself “pro-choice.” No Republican nominee for president in the last 30 years has taken this stance.

Yet if the midterms showed one thing, it is that the American people want access to legal abortion. A majority of Americans think abortion should be legal, with 50 percent saying there should be some limits, according to Gallup. Even in solidly red states like Kansas and Kentucky, voters made this clear.

If Mr. Sununu can eke out a win in the primaries, he will likely have more appeal to independents than Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Trump, or the former Trump administration officials. New Hampshire is a purple state with 40 percent of its registered voters undeclared in party affiliation. Mr. Sununu handily won these voters in his re-election.

The question is whether he has the “it” factor and a message that will capture the GOP base. Like Mr. Trump did in 2016, Mr. DeSantis’s aggressive wading into culture war issues is working to fire up the base. He also won over some Democrats and independents in his landslide re-election in November. 

Mr. Sununu’s message of optimism, negotiation, and fiscal responsibility may not ignite the same passion among primary voters. Yet to win in the general, you also have to appeal to the middle. Mr. Sununu has shown he can do that.