Even Democrats Admit: Sununu Could Flip New Hampshire Senate Seat Red

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

The U.S. Senate race in Maine generates more headlines in a week than the New Hampshire contest next door has generated this year. But some campaign professionals — not to mention the candidate himself — say the 2026 campaign is far from a lock for Democrats.

In a profile of the contest published by Semafor on Monday, Democratic frontrunner U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas warned against overconfidence. “This is a tough, tight race.”

That isn’t the message Democrats usually deliver in a state where they haven’t lost a U.S. Senate race since 2010 and only one federal race since the 2010 Tea Party wave. Why is this race different?

Republicans successfully recruited Sununu, a former U.S. senator and member of one of New Hampshire’s best-known political families. The Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP’s top Senate super PAC, has already reserved $17 million in television advertising for the fall, and Americans for Prosperity Action has spent $2 million in the race backing Sununu.

And then there are the polls showing a race within the margin of error. A March Emerson College poll found Pappas and Sununu virtually tied in a hypothetical general election, with Pappas at 45 percent and Sununu at 44 percent.

Even U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., acknowledged Sununu puts the Democratic seat at risk.

“The Republican Party has put a lot more resources in than they have in past cycles, and they’ve obviously recruited somebody with the kind of name ID that is a threshold to success,” Hassan told Semafor, adding, “This is a really serious race.”

While Sununu still has to win the GOP nomination, Democrats are already treating him like the likely nominee. Pappas told Semafor that Brown is “outworking” Sununu, but said he “would be shocked” if Sununu were not the Republican nominee, thanks in part to President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Sununu is making the same argument to Republican voters: Pappas is not the independent-minded New Hampshire Democrat he claims to be, but a reliable vote for national party leaders.

“When Nancy Pelosi was speaker, he voted with her 222 out of 223 possible times. That’s not New Hampshire,” Sununu said when he filed at the Secretary of State’s office earlier this month. “He opposes voter ID. That’s not New Hampshire. And just a few weeks ago, Chris Pappas voted for a national car tax. I don’t know anyone in New Hampshire who supports a national car tax.”

Pappas, meanwhile, is trying to distance himself from the national Democratic brand. He told Semafor that Democrats need to be seen as the party of “smart, efficient government” and said some parts of the Biden administration were not working. He also cited times he broke with Democratic leaders on immigration, proposed IRS bank-account reporting rules, and private-sector vaccine mandates.

But Republicans say the record tells a different story.

“Chris Pappas should be worried. He’s spent years answering to his Washington liberal bosses instead of Granite Staters,” said Chris Gustafson, communications director for Senate Leadership Fund. “Senate Leadership Fund is proud to back Sen. John E. Sununu, and we’re eager to expose Pappas’ record of caving to the demands of the radical left.”

Sununu spokesman Chris Schrimpf called Pappas “the poster child of the Democratic Party’s leftist lurch.”

Some Republicans admit to NHJournal on background that portraying Pappas as a mini-Mamdani is a stretch. But linking a party loyalist like Pappas (he typically voted with the Democrat majority around 90 percent of the time) with a party that’s becoming more extreme is a message that’s both accurate and potentially effective.

That’s one reason Republicans like talking about Graham Platner in Maine. Platner’s far-left politics and offensive language toward women, gays, and minorities have inspired several prominent Democrats to denounce his candidacy.

Not Pappas.

When he filed for Senate earlier this month, he repeatedly dodged questions about whether Maine Democratic Senate candidate Platner — who has faced allegations involving antisemitic, racist and sexist comments, as well as criticism over a Nazi tattoo — is fit to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Pappas called the allegations “deeply concerning” but declined to say whether Platner is fit for office, saying Maine voters will have to decide.

Sununu pounced.

“It’s pretty easy for me to say the socialist with the Nazi tattoo, who wore it for over a decade, is not qualified to be in the United States Senate,” Sununu said. “Chris Pappas, my opponent, is unwilling to say that. And that’s unfortunate.”

If Granite State voters see Pappas as too weak to stand up for their state, that could play into Sununu’s strengths as a former senator with a record of battling his own party.

And given the state of the 2026 Senate map, there is no realistic path to a Democratic majority in November if Democrats lose New Hampshire.

Still, the Cook Political Report rates the race as “leans Democrat,” and an unpopular Republican president during a midterm usually means good news for Democrats, particularly in New England. (A New UNH Survey Center poll found Trump underwater in New Hampshire by 24 points, 38% approve, 62% disapprove.)

That’s a huge hole to dig out of, even with the Sununu name.

Still, Pappas says he’s taking nothing for granted. Former New Hampshire GOP chair Fergus Cullen says that’s the only way to run.

“It would be political malpractice for Pappas to treat this as anything other than a very competitive race, even with the national wind at his back,” Cullen said.

“I think it’s going to stay in the margin of error from here to November,” Pappas said.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.