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First Congressional District Democrat Maura Sullivan has yet to file her personal financial disclosure as required by federal ethics law. The House Ethics Committee confirmed Wednesday that the financial filing, which was originally due by May 15, has not yet been filed.

Sullivan’s campaign says it’s a mere oversight, but political observers say it’s a rookie mistake for a veteran Democrat who worked in the Obama administration and ran in the NH-01 primary in 2018.

Every candidate for Congress is required to file a Personal Financial Disclosure (PFD) with the House Ethics Committee. The disclosure provides voters with transparency about the financial interests, income, and potential conflicts of interest of potential members of Congress.

In early May, Sullivan asked the House Committee on Ethics for a 90-day extension on the filing deadline for her PFD. The deadline was pushed back to August 13. Sullivan missed that deadline as well.

On Wednesday, Sullivan’s spokesman Nick London acknowledged she has still not filed the report.

“In taking the time necessary to collect all the materials necessary to file an accurate report, the campaign missed the filing deadline. We own that. It will be submitted as soon as possible. It won’t happen again,” London told NHJournal.

Republicans are asking why Sullivan hasn’t filed this standard disclosure, suggesting she has something to hide.

“Democrat Maura Sullivan refuses to give New Hampshire voters basic transparency. Granite Staters deserve to know what she’s hiding because the last thing they want is just another radical politician playing by her own rules,” NRCC spokeswoman Maureen O’Toole told NHJournal.

The personal financial information in PFDs is required under several statutes passed by Congress to address ethical misbehavior: the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (EIGA), the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA), and most recently, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 (STOCK Act).

The latter was passed due to concerns that members, allegedly including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), were profiting off inside information members of Congress gathered as part of the job.

This failure to file isn’t the first stumble of Sullivan’s 2026 campaign.

The first prominent Democrat to enter the race after incumbent Rep. Chris Pappas announced he was running for U.S. Senate, Sullivan labeled herself a “lifelong Granite Stater.” In fact, Sullivan was born in Evanston, Ill., attended Northwestern University, served abroad in the Marines, and worked in the Obama administration. She didn’t move to New Hampshire until weeks before she entered the 2018 primary, earning her the label “carpetbagger.”

Sullivan also sparked controversy when she posted a photo with a supporter displaying an “86 47” sign — shorthand for “Kill Donald Trump.”

At the same time, veteran political operatives say Sullivan, 45, has the skills and resources to mount a serious challenge to presumed frontrunner Stefany Shaheen, daughter of outgoing U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. In particular, they note her fundraising prowess. In 2018, she raised around $1.5 million, more than the eventual winner, Pappas. And she’s currently leading Shaheen in the fundraising race, despite Stefany Shaheen’s family connections. (Shaheen’s four children, including a son who was in high school, reportedly donated the max to her campaign.)

Other Democrats in the NH-01 primary include:

• Carleigh Beriont, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and Hampton select board member.

• Sarah E. Chadzynski, a nonprofit director from Lyndeborough, N.H.

• Heath Howard, a two-term New Hampshire House member from Strafford who describes himself as “a member of the disability community”

• Christian Urrutia, an attorney, former Pentagon special counsel, and captain in the National Guard

Cook Political Report rates the district as “Likely Democrat” in 2026, and Democrats have won the seat in six of the past seven cycles. Still, Republicans are hopeful the surge of working-class voters into the GOP can help them pick up the seat next year.

Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of the state’s senior U.S. senator and widely viewed as a likely future Democratic candidate, is using her position on the Portsmouth Police Commission to call for gun confiscation as a “reasonable measure” to address gun violence.

In the wake of last week’s mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, Tenn., Shaheen penned an op-ed for the Portsmouth Herald bemoaning the fact that “we have not found a way to implement reasonable safety measures to keep first-graders from being shot in their classroom with automatic assault weapons that can unload 90 bullets in 10 seconds. 90 bullets in 10 seconds!”

However, she added, “There are reasonable measures we can take to stem the tide of these horrendous deaths.” Among them:

• Banning the sale of semi-automatic weapons.

• A mandatory assault weapon buyback program.

Shaheen, a children’s book author who chairs the city commission that oversees the police department, is staking out political ground by advocating a ban on the sale of most guns found in New Hampshire sporting goods stores. And gun confiscation — the “mandatory buyback” of privately owned weapons by the government — is such a political hot button that even aggressive anti-gun groups like Giffords and Everytown have declined to embrace it.

“The beauty of a democratic form of government is that WE [sic] the people have power,” she wrote. “Together, we can insist that those who earn our votes support safety in our schools and on our streets. We can end this vicious cycle of inaction driven by those who want us to disengage and give up.”

Shaheen declined to respond to questions from NH Journal regarding her specific policy proposals. She also declined to answer a question about whether politicians should accept campaign donations from gun manufacturers.

Shaheen’s mother, Sen. Jeane Shaheen, has taken at least $13,000 in direct campaign donations from New Hampshire-based gun maker Sig Sauer.

Sen. Shaheen’s press team also declined to respond to requests for comment. However, the senator has supported legislation banning the sale of some popular firearms, like the AR-15, as part of a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

Kim Morin with the Women’s Defense League of New Hampshire said the younger Shaheen is simply out of touch. The Granite State has never had a school shooting. The only mass shooting incident in New Hampshire occurred 26 years ago when her mother was governor. Then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen did not enact new gun laws after Carl Drega shot and killed four people in Colebrook, including two New Hampshire state troopers.  

“Stefany Shaheen lives in one of the safest states in the country. She is blaming thousands of Granite Staters who lawfully own AR-15 style rifles for the actions of a psychopath,” Morin said. “Her suggestion of a ‘mandatory buyback program’ is nothing less than gun confiscation.”

Stefany Shaheen’s op-ed also called for a ban on high-capacity magazines, enacting “red flag” laws, and requiring a license for any gun purchase. Critics note, however, that part of her argument is based on counterfactual gun specs, such as her reference to “automatic assault weapons.”

In fact, the Nashville shooter did not have automatic weapons. Fully automatic weapons, also known as machine guns, are not typically available to Americans. They can be purchased, but only with a special permit and tax stamp. The weapons are also prohibitively expensive in most cases.

The semi-automatic type of firearms the Nashville shooter carried can only fire one bullet per trigger pull. It is highly unlikely the Nashville shooter, or any other shooter, can pull a trigger 90 times in 10 seconds. 

“They can only fire as fast as a person can pull the trigger,” Morin said. “People like (Stefany) Shaheen, who clearly knows nothing about firearms, shouldn’t be commenting on how firearms work and certainly shouldn’t be trying to create laws about them.”

Stefany Shaheen’s proposal also does nothing about handguns being the most commonly used weapons by mass shooters. Morin said Shaheen’s poor grasp of the facts and her extreme ideas like gun confiscation show how far out of mainstream she is from average Granite Staters.

“We don’t live in a third-world country ruled by authoritarian dictators. We live in one of the freest states in America. Shaheen, like her mother Jeanne, is completely out of touch with the people of New Hampshire, especially women,” Morin said.