Gov. Chris Sununu is increasingly taking aim at Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, sparking renewed speculation that the two-term Republican governor is seriously mulling a GOP challenge in next year’s election.

Sununu jumped on one of New Hampshire’s top news-talk morning radio programs on Thursday to criticize Shaheen.

The verbal fireworks occurred on “New Hampshire Today with Jack Heath” following his interview with Shaheen. Asked about the possibility of running for re-election against Sununu, she answered “that’s his decision. This is a seat that belongs to the people of New Hampshire. They will ultimately decide who should continue to serve them in Washington.”

As a guest on the program a few minutes later, Sununu said, “Let’s look at the senator’s answer. It’s a seat that belongs to the people. She’s absolutely right and the people are going to take it back. Because the last 12 years, you think we’re just going to accept the status quo for another six years?”

“What has our federal delegation done to show real leadership across the board?” Sununu asked as he targeted the Granite State’s all-Democratic congressional delegation.

And as he’s urged repeatedly in recent months, the governor called on voters to “fire them all. Fire them all in Congress. Washington should be ashamed of the lack of leadership they’ve given to this country.”

Firing another blast, Sununu highlighted that “you have to be creative. You have to engage with people, design a new system and be able to put yourself out there. The congressional delegation, across the board, has failed on that miserably. And 2020 is going to be a reckoning.”

The latest volley in the war of words came five weeks after Shaheen, addressing the audience at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club fundraising gala, urged Democrats to defeat Sununu in 2020 to help him “fulfill his childhood dream and follow the family tradition of being the very best corporate lobbyist he can be.”

Earlier this month, Sununu for the first time publicly opened the door a bit to the possibility of taking on Shaheen next year rather than running for re-election.

Sununu said, “I don’t rule anything out,” and called Shaheen “very vulnerable” as he answered questions from the Monitor and WMUR.

And in recent days, Sununu and the congressional delegation have traded fire over who’s to blame for the strong possibility that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard could lose $200 million in federal funds.

The potential loss of construction funding for already allocated projects stems from a controversial Feb. 15 declaration of a national emergency along the U.S. border with Mexico by President Donald Trump, which would allow the president to divert military funding to extend the current border wall. The move is supported by many Republicans but has been heavily criticized by Democrats.

Sununu, a strong Trump supporter, has repeatedly blamed Congress, and in particular the New Hampshire delegation, for the potential loss of federal funding for the shipyard.

Democrats have fired back.

“Chris Sununu has consistently put his allegiance to Trump ahead of New Hampshire, even as the President raids funding for the shipyard and ends health care for people with pre-existing conditions. The last thing New Hampshire needs is a Trump rubberstamp in the Senate,” New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said.

Sources close to the governor told the Monitor that Sununu’s been repeatedly approached by leading Republicans in the nation’s capital and in the Granite State about the possibility of challenging Shaheen. While the conventional wisdom was that an announcement by Sununu would come after the 2019 legislative session had concluded and the state’s next two-year budget was signed, sources say a decision could possibly come earlier.

Shaheen, a former governor, officially announced in late January that she would run for re-election to a third six-year term representing New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate.

If Sununu ended up facing off against Shaheen, it would be the third showdown between the two political families.

Then-governor Shaheen lost the 2002 Senate election to then-Congressman John E. Sununu, the current governor’s older brother. Shaheen defeated the incumbent Republican senator in their 2008 rematch.

Buttigieg’s 2020 surge

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg returns to New Hampshire next weekend. The April 5 to 6 swing will include a stop in the Capital City.

The Democratic presidential contender will hold an event Friday evening at the To Share Brewery in Manchester. And he’s scheduled to hold a meet-and-greet at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning at Gibson’s Bookstore in downtown Concord.

When Buttigieg launched his presidential exploratory committee in January, he was a long shot for the nomination. But the 37-year-old is a candidate on the rise with large crowds on the campaign trail, buzz on social media, a recent explosion of coverage by cable news networks and national political press and a bump in the polls.

Buttigieg said he started noticing the larger crowds and increased buzz during a campaign swing in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire earlier this month.

“Actually, the first time I tasted it was in Portsmouth,” he recollected. “It was a Friday evening and we came over for what I thought was going to be a meet-and-greet in a bar, and it felt more like a rally when we got there. That was just the beginning.”

Two days later, Buttigieg scored rave reviews for his performance during a prime-time town hall televised live by CNN.

“Once the CNN town hall happened, it felt like a step change in the level of energy and interest in what we’re doing,” he said in an interview with the Monitor and Fox News.

Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran, would become the nation’s first openly gay president if he makes it to the White House.

Gillibrand heading back to NH next weekend

The Monitor learned that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is coming to Concord next weekend. The two-day Friday and Saturday Granite State swing on April 5-6 will include a town hall in Concord on Saturday (location and time still to be determined) and an event in Carroll County, with more stops to be added to the senator’s itinerary.

It’s Gillibrand’s fourth trip to New Hampshire since launching a presidential exploratory committee in January and the first since she formally declared her candidacy last weekend.

Delaney targetsnomination rivals

Former representative John Delaney of Maryland worries that some of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination are moving too far to the left.

“You have to put forward ideas that make sense,” the Democrat said Thursday as he sat down for an interview in Concord with the Monitor and NHTalkRadio.com during a jam-packed two-day swing through the state.

Delaney charged that many of the other 2020 presidential candidates are “running on things that aren’t real solutions.”

Among the proposals, he pointed to was the Green New Deal, the sweeping guidelines popular with the Democratic Party’s progressive base that aim to transform the country’s economy to fight climate change – while enacting a host of new health care and welfare programs.

“If you say the way I’m going to address climate change is by tying it to universal basic income, or by tying it to universal health care, you’re basically saying you’re not going to do anything on climate change,” he argued.

Delaney feared that some of the proposals being pushed by his rivals will give GOP President Donald Trump and Republicans ammunition and “could take us down a path where we’re not that competitive against the president,” in next year’s general election.

And the candidate, who announced his long-shot White House bid back in the summer of 2017, said his game plan is “to stick to my message. Not get caught up in this rush to the left and socialism and all this

stuff.”

Harris wants to giveteachers a pay raise

Sen. Kamala Harris wants to give teachers across the country a raise.

In the first major proposal of her presidential campaign, the Democrat from California unveiled a plan Tuesday to eliminate the teacher pay gap and give the average teacher a $13,500 per year raise.

The price tag for the ambitious plan? $315 billion over 10 years.

The Harris campaign touted that the boost in salary would be “the equivalent of a 23 percent pay increase” for the average Granite State teacher.