Happy 78th Birthday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen!
To celebrate the senior senator’s birthday, NHJournal presents a timeline of Senator Shaheen’s long and storied career:
January 28, 1947: Cynthia Jeanne Bowers was born in St. Charles, Mo., the same state as then-President of the United States, Harry S. Truman.
1968: Jeanne casts her first vote in a presidential race — for Richard M. Nixon!
1973: Jeanne packs up her political science degree from the University of Mississippi and moves to New Hampshire, where she soon marries Bill Shaheen.
1976: Jeanne Shaheen helps Jimmy Carter win a surprise victory in the First in the Nation presidential primary, launching the career that would make him one of America’s few one-term presidents.
1984: Jeanne Shaheen is Granite State campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential bid, which later sank due to scandal.
1990: She’s now state Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, after winning elected office for the first time. Also elected that same year: Mikhail Gorbachev, who became president of the Soviet Union.
1996: Jeanne Shaheen becomes the first woman elected governor of New Hampshire.
2000: Shaheen successfully seeks a third term — her first without taking the “no-tax” pledge. In fact, Shaheen became the first New Hampshire governor in 38 years to win an election without making that pledge. She would go on to propose a sales tax and an income tax on capital gains.
2002: Shaheen loses to John E. Sununu in the U.S. Senate race. During the campaign, she’s given the nickname “Jeanne Shaheen, the Taxing Machine.”
2004: Shaheen is named national chairperson of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s unsuccessful bid for president.
2008: Shaheen defeats Sen. Sununu in a rematch, becoming the first woman to represent New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate.
2024: Shaheen endorses a write-in effort to help 81-year-old President Joe Biden win the New Hampshire primary — a primary he personally demanded be removed from its First in the Nation slot.
2025 … and beyond: At 78, Shaheen is the first woman to serve as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She’s reportedly seriously considering seeking a fourth term in office, meaning she would be just weeks shy of 80 if she’s sworn in for it and nearly 86 when her term would end in 2032.
So happy 78th birthday to Senator Jeanne Shaheen!
