Weld returned to the stage and announced, “I’m a Libertarian for life.”

“Pledge to our party that he will not betray us and that he is not a Republican,” Alicia Dearn demanded.

Back in May, when Bill Weld attended his first Libertarian national convention seeking to become the party’s vice presidential nomination, a skeptical candidate for the same position summoned the former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts back to the stage.

What Weld didn’t say is that even a Libertarian can root for Republicans once in a while.

Just a few months after the convention, Weld made two donations totaling $450 to support Republican Chris Sununu’s bid to become New Hampshire governor this fall. Sununu is running against a Democrat, Colin Van Ostern, as well as a Libertarian, state Representative Max Abramson of Seabrook.


Sununu’s father, John H. Sununu, is a former New Hampshire governor and a former White House chief of staff. Weld was Massachusetts governor and served in the US Justice Department. But the two men did not overlap as governors or in Washington.

Weld did campaign for President George H.W. Bush in New Hampshire with Sununu in 1992.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign at www.bostonglobe.com/groundgame