Former Sen. John E. Sununu’s comeback attempt in New Hampshire has Democrats there warning about a tougher-than-expected Senate race that could complicate the party’s effort to flip control of the chamber next year.
Sununu — a Republican who served one Senate term two decades ago and whose younger brother, Chris, was more recently the state’s popular four-term governor — jumped into the race last month.
The GOP establishment quickly rallied around Sununu in a primary that also includes Scott Brown, who served as an ambassador in President Donald Trump’s first term and as a senator from neighboring Massachusetts in the early 2010s.
Democrats are likely to counter with Rep. Chris Pappas for a seat that is up for grabs next year after Democratic incumbent Jeanne Shaheen, who beat Sununu in 2008, decided against seeking re-election. Mindful that their party’s recruiting windfalls in Maine, North Carolina and Ohio have brought more attention to those 2026 Senate battlegrounds, Democrats fear New Hampshire could be lost in the national shuffle.
“I think people are sleeping on New Hampshire nationally, and that’s really foolish,” said Aaron Jacobs, who managed Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan’s 2022 re-election effort there and ran the state campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
“I certainly think a Sununu getting in the race puts this race at a different level,” Jacobs added. “John Sununu is not Chris Sununu. It’s been a long time since he was a senator. But the bumper stickers are still going to say Sununu.”
Democrats need to net four seats to regain control of the Senate in the midterm elections. Maine, North Carolina and Ohio stand as top pickup opportunities, while Michigan and Georgia are two swing states where the party is playing defense. New Hampshire can get overlooked, given that voters there haven’t elected a Republican to the Senate in 15 years.
Elections for governor this week in New Jersey and Virginia favored Democrats while underscoring how worried voters are about affordability and other economic issues. A challenge for Republicans in closely divided states next year will be how to navigate their relationships with Trump, ever influential in GOP primaries, while keeping a distance from him in the general election if he becomes a political liability.
The Sununus are a household name in New Hampshire. Even before John became a senator and Chris the governor, their father, John H. Sununu, had served as governor. The sons are known for possessing an independent streak that plays well in a state that has never favored Trump in a general election.
Both have been occasional critics of Trump and supported Nikki Haley over him last year in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation GOP presidential primary. A day before Trump’s victory there, John E. Sununu wrote a guest column for the New Hampshire Union Leader under the headline, “Donald Trump is a loser.”
Even so, Trump had been high on the prospect of Chris Sununu expanding the Republicans’ Senate map, telling reporters in April that he hoped the former governor would run. The younger Sununu, who also had been courted to run for Senate in 2022, passed again. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., instead went to work to recruit his older brother.
“He makes it a tough race,” Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, said of John E. Sununu. “The name means something in New Hampshire. And Sununu will bring in a ton of money. It will be the most expensive race we’ve ever seen in New Hampshire.”
Sununu’s launch was quickly cheered by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and its chair, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.
“Sen. Sununu turned New Hampshire from a potential opportunity into a top battleground race,” NRSC spokesperson Samantha Cantrell said. “His deep ties to the state and grassroots support make him uniquely qualified to take on Chris Pappas and give New Hampshire a Senator that will put their needs first always.”
Several Democrats pointed to two recent elections as too close for comfort and a sign of what could await them if Sununu is the GOP nominee. In 2016, Sen. Maggie Hassan unseated Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte, now the state’s governor, by just over 1,000 votes. And in last year’s presidential contest, Harris beat Trump there by 2.8 percentage points — the narrowest margin in a state Trump lost.
Trump was on the ballot both of those years and won the White House despite losing New Hampshire. Hassan, who did not share a ballot with Trump in her 2022 re-election bid, won a second Senate term by 9 points in the most recent midterm election.
A University of New Hampshire poll in late September, conducted before Sununu entered the race, measured him to be a stronger general election opponent than Brown. The poll, which had a margin of error of 2.7 points, found that likely voters favored Pappas over Sununu, 49% to 43%, and over Brown, 52% to 37%.
“I’m not sure, atmospherically, this matches up to be a massive Republican year, especially in New Hampshire,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and former Ayotte aide. “But we always have competitive races, and the name Sununu alone, much less John E.’s personal relationship with so many Granite Staters, is certainly worth something.”
Sununu would first have to win a primary.
The UNH poll found him leading Brown by more than 20 points. Brown has vowed to continue on in the race, embracing the contrast between a Washington establishment lining up behind Sununu and a grassroots base that he argues is more in tune with his candidacy. The X factor is Trump, who has yet to endorse — but whose openness to one Sununu for the Senate seat has raised the possibility he’ll back another. Both Sununu and Brown have said they are seeking Trump’s support.
“That is not necessarily a good strategy for the general election, because New Hampshire has not ever voted for Donald Trump for president,” said Jim Demers, a longtime Democratic insider in the state. “The independent voters here, who are our biggest bloc of voters, tend to be very anti-Trump.”
Brown, despite having served in Trump’s first administration, has also been critical of the president at times, most notably when he said Trump’s presidency was “diminished” by the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In an interview last weekend on New Hampshire’s WMUR-TV, Brown repeated a new campaign talking point — “It’s not Chris, it’s John” — while casting Sununu as a Trump hater.
“John is no Chris, obviously, and he’s going to have to go and prove himself, and he’s going to have to answer a lot of questions,” Brown said. “He and his family have been Trump bashers for over a decade. … He did the whole thing, ‘Trump’s a loser.’ And then he said, ‘Well, I didn’t write the headline.’ Yeah, but you read the article, that’s what he’s saying.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the possibility of a Trump endorsement in the primary. Asked in the interview about the prospect of Trump backing Sununu, Brown said “we’ll figure out where we go from there” if that happens.
“But I can tell you what,” Brown added. “If he gets the endorsement from the president, the grassroots and the activists will absolutely not be with him, and he will absolutely not win this election, period.”
Sununu’s campaign announced Wednesday that seven grassroots leaders in the state had switched their support from Brown to Sununu. And in his own WMUR interview, Sununu rejected the idea that he’s anti-Trump.
“We need someone who can be an effective advocate with President Trump in this White House, and there’s absolutely no question I will be that person,” Sununu said.
Responding to the suggestion that the Republican base would prefer someone who pledges “full political allegiance” to Trump, Sununu added: “I don’t think people in New Hampshire want a rubber stamp for anyone.”
Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, predicted that Brown and Sununu will spend the 10 months leading to the September 2026 primary “battling it out” for Trump’s endorsement and taking positions that will hurt them in the general election. Democrats, who are facing a less contentious primary in which Pappas is a clear front-runner, will use that time to “build the resources and infrastructure we need to win next November,” Buckley said.
“New Hampshire is no stranger to competitive races, but we are confident that Democrats will keep this seat regardless of who Republicans pick to be their Trump yes-man,” he added.
In a statement to NBC News, Sununu spokesperson Mike Schrimpf emphasized how often Pappas voted with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the liberal former speaker of the House. Sununu, he said, “is running to be the New Hampshire candidate and has a proven record of always putting Granite Staters first. He will be a voice for all people in New Hampshire on important issues like the economy and affordability.”
A Brown adviser did not respond to requests for comment.
Republicans see Pappas as a tough opponent given how in 2018 he flipped — and then held — a congressional seat that swung back and forth in the previous decade.
“This is someone who is most famous not for being a long-standing congressman, but for being the owner of one of the state’s most famous restaurants,” Bartlett said, referring to the Puritan Backroom, a Manchester restaurant co-owned by Pappas that lays claim to having invented the chicken tender. “So that lends credibility.”
Pappas campaign manager Rachel Petri previewed a clash with Sununu by emphasizing the former senator’s work in the private sector and how he lost the Senate seat in 2008.
“Our campaign will continue to make the difference between Chris Pappas and John Sununu clear,” Petri said. “Pappas will fight for Granite Staters and Sununu will sell out New Hampshire to corporations and special interests — and that’s why Granite Staters will reject John Sununu just like they did seventeen years ago.”
