It’s a lesson the Granite State GOP must learn every two years, and it appears it is about to learn it again.
New Hampshire doesn’t send Republicans to Washington, D.C.
Period.
The numbers have been recounted in these pages many times before: Republicans have lost eight of the last nine presidential races, and they’ve only won one race for Congress (House or Senate) since the 2010 Tea Party wave.
And so, if everything goes normally, New Hampshire will send the Democratic nominee to the U.S. Senate in 2026, no matter who it is. (Most likely, Rep. Chris Pappas.)
Until 24 hours ago, the good news for the GOP was that the Senate race wasn’t unfolding “normally.” Something unusual, off script, was playing a role, something that could knock history off its tracks and create an opportunity for their party.
Father Time.
A senator approaching 80 and asking for another six-year term is a political issue that transcends partisanship. As was the case with President Joe Biden, when a majority of Democrats were telling pollsters he was too old to run again during the 2024 campaign, the age issue is a problem for candidates among their own voters.
And having just watched Biden blow his party’s chances to hold the White House, it’s a bigger issue today than it would have been in, say, 2022.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen knows that, though she wasn’t willing to admit it to WMUR’s Adam Sexton on Wednesday.
In an interview, Shaheen denied age was the reason for her decision, but rather the “length of time” she has served. “As we know, President Trump is older than I am, and he continues to serve. It’s about the job and whether you’re able to do it.”
And if Shaheen had been the nominee, that would have been the entire race: A debate over whether Shaheen could still do the job through the year 2032. And that was a race Republicans could win. Not a lock, but winnable.
That race is over.
With Shaheen out, the U.S. Senate race defaults to what Cook Political Report calls a “leans Democrat,” and what clear-eyed New Hampshire Republicans call a “long shot.”
Except there is one more thing that transcends partisanship in New Hampshire: former Gov. Chris Sununu.
As GOP strategist Jim Merrill says in the latest NHJournal podcast, “Chris Sununu is the undefeated, undisputed, heavyweight champion of New Hampshire politics.” There simply isn’t another politician like him on either side of the aisle.
The political press is full of praise for Shaheen’s career, as is to be expected when a longtime officeholder retires. But she has never come close to the success Sununu has achieved.
When Shaheen won the governor’s office in 1996, Bill Clinton was at the top of the ticket on his way to an easy victory over Bob Dole. In 2008, she rode Barack Obama’s coattails as he clobbered John McCain. In between, she lost to John E. Sununu in 2002, when she earned the nickname “Jeanne Shaheen, the Taxing Machine.”
Chris Sununu? His first race for governor was with Donald Trump on the ticket, who he outperformed by 8,000 votes. Four years later, Trump lost by eight points while Sununu won by 33 — and 151,000 more votes than Trump. And he remains undefeated.
If Sununu runs, he won’t be the Republican candidate for Senate, he’ll be the “Sununu” candidate. He has his own brand, his own voters, his own base. Will Democrats try to label him a “Trump guy through and through?” They spent millions doing just that while he was governor, and they went 0-4.
Chris Pappas has been working toward this race for years, and he will be a formidable candidate. He’s chosen key votes to break with his party — he supported the Laken Riley Act last year, when Shaheen and Co. rejected it as xenophobia, for example — and he’s kept a low partisan profile. He’ll be able to run as a nice guy who owns a popular restaurant and isn’t “one of those Democrats.”
Which means that, on paper, the 2026 Senate race is over. It’s New Hampshire. He’s a Democrat. Call it a day.
Senior Sen. Shaheen was the one Democrat who kept GOP hopes alive. Now she’s gone.
The fact that New Hampshire Republicans are still in this race is a testament to the political talents of Chris Sununu.
Keep those fingers crossed, Republicans.
