Trump ally Lewandowski eyes New Hampshire gubernatorial race amid pressure

President Donald Trump’s first campaign manager and longtime ally, Corey Lewandowski, is weighing a primary challenge next year against Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

“Everyone says being a Governor is the best job in Politics. I agree,” Lewandowski wrote in a social media post Thursday evening.

Lewandowski’s news comes as Trump’s political team appears to turn up the heat on Ayotte over her resistance to the president’s push for mid-decade redistricting in order to protect the GOP’s fragile House majority in the 2026 midterm elections.

There’s long been interest by some state Republican lawmakers in redistricting to make New Hampshire’s First Congressional District more GOP-friendly. Democrats have controlled both of the state’s U.S. House seats for nearly a decade.

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Corey Lewandowski, center, speaks at a Trump campaign event following the 2020 presidential election, on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Philadelphia. (Matt Slocum – AP Photo)

And it’s possible the Republican-controlled New Hampshire legislature passes and sends to Ayotte’s desk a redistricting bill early next year.

Ayotte’s predecessor, former Gov. Chris Sununu, three years ago, vetoed a new congressional map passed by Statehouse Republicans.

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The current governor has pushed back against the pressure campaign over redistricting.

“I don’t think the timing is right for redistricting. And as I look at where we are and the things we should be focusing on, this is not something that I support doing at this point,” Ayotte told WMUR-TV last month.

Ayotte’s team did not respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, at a bill signing on May 22, 2025 at the Statehouse in Concord, N.H.  (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News )

A longtime New Hampshire-based Republican political strategist told Fox News “this comes down to whether or not the president is seriously interested in changing the outcome of this race. We’ll know a potential run would be serious if we hear from the White House that the president is driving this train.”

“Otherwise I think this is more a case of firing a shot across the governor’s bow to get her attention in the hopes of getting her to actively consider signing legislation that would change the congressional districts across New Hampshire,” added the strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

Two Republican-dominated states, Texas and Missouri, have already passed new congressional maps which combined could swing six House seats from blue to red. And nearly a half-dozen other right-leaning states are considering similar moves, after lobbying from the president and his team.

It’s part of a broad effort by the GOP to pad its razor-thin House majority to keep control of the chamber in next year’s midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

Trump and his political team are aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

The social media post by Lewandowski followed a report from Politico that he was considering a gubernatorial run next year. Republican sources confirmed the report to Fox News.

The Windham, N.H., resident served as Trump’s campaign manager during the 2016 presidential primaries before being replaced during the general election campaign. But Lewandowski has remained close to Trump over the years, held senior adviser roles in the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, and keeps in regular contact with the president.

President Donald Trump is joined by longtime ally and outside adviser Corey Lewandowski, at a rally at Total Sports Park in Washington, Michigan, on April 28, 2018. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Lewandowski, who for years served as a top outside adviser to then-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, now serves as a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where Noem is Trump’s DHS secretary.

This isn’t the first time Lewandowski has considered a statewide run in New Hampshire. In the 2020 election cycle, he flirted with a run for the Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. 

And in early 2021, he teased a possible 2022 run for governor months ahead of popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu’s launch of his successful re-election bid. New Hampshire, along with Vermont, are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial elections every two years.

“I’ve known Corey a long time. If he’s passionate about something, then he’ll fight to the end to get it and I think he’s passionate about the people of New Hampshire and being governor is probably the best way he can serve them,” New Hampshire native Joshua Whitehouse, who worked with Lewandowski on the 2016 campaign and who’s a veteran of the first Trump administration, told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

While Lewandowski would likely grab support from MAGA world if he runs for governor, his past political baggage could come back to hurt him.

After facing allegations he made unwanted sexual advances towards a Republican donor’s wife at a 2021 charity event, he was pushed out of his job steering a top pro-Trump super PAC. Lewandowski later cut a deal with prosecutors in the case after he was charged with misdemeanor battery.

Trump’s spokesperson said at the time that Lewandowski “will no longer be associated with Trump world.” 

And Noem’s spokesperson at the time said Lewandowski “will not be advising the governor in regard to the campaign or official office.”

But he quickly worked his way back into both Trump and Noem’s political orbits.

Lewandowski was also charged in 2016 after yanking the arm of a reporter at a Trump campaign event, but the charges were later dropped.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks in Quito, Ecuador, in July 2025  (Getty Images/Alex Brandon)

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The New Hampshire Democratic Party took aim at both Lewandowski and Ayotte in a statement.

“Corey Lewandowski and Kelly Ayotte are two sides of the same extreme coin: Republican hardliners who have zero problem bending at the knee for Donald Trump and letting him steamroll New Hampshire families,” longtime state party Chair Ray Buckley claimed.