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Our verdict

nobody gets our endorsement

Election Day is November 3. New Hampshire offers no in-person early voting — absentee ballots require a qualifying excuse, and the state registers voters at the polls on Election Day itself. This is the whole race — the platforms, the records, the worst claims against each man, and what the sources actually show. LiberalMind endorses neither of them. Read the research, and decide which flaw you can live with.

How New Hampshire got here

This seat belongs, for a few more months, to Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who has held it since 2009 and is not seeking a fourth term. It is the first open Senate race in New Hampshire since 2010, in a state that votes Democratic for president, has sent an all-Democratic delegation to Washington since 2017 — and simultaneously runs a Republican trifecta in Concord, with a Republican governor and both legislative chambers. New Hampshire is the most ticket-splitting state in this series, and this race is its natural product.

The Democratic nominee is Rep. Chris Pappas, who has represented the 1st District since 2019 — winning and holding one of the swingiest House seats in America — and whose family owns the Manchester restaurant famous for the chicken tender. He won the September 8 primary with 65 percent against scientist Karishma Manzur.

The Republican nominee is John E. Sununu. If the name and the matchup sound familiar, they should: Sununu won this seat in 2002 by beating then-Governor Shaheen, lost it to her in the 2008 rematch, and has been out of the Senate for eighteen years. Son of a governor, brother of a governor, he won the Republican primary with 68.5 percent against former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown. Constitution Party candidate Edmond Laplante is also on the ballot.

The raters, as of their October readings: the Cook Political Report moved the race to Lean Democratic on October 6. Sabato's Crystal Ball likewise rated it Lean Democratic as of that date, and DDHQ/The Hill rated it Likely Democratic. Inside Elections held it at Toss-up — the most favorable reading for Sununu. Polling averages in late October put Pappas ahead by about seven points, with Sununu notably stronger among voters over 50, where one AARP survey found the race within a point. Republicans have not won a New Hampshire Senate race since 2010. They have rarely had a recruit like this one to try.

Why this seat is in play

New Hampshire does not owe either party a Senate seat, and everyone involved knows it. Shaheen's retirement removed the incumbent advantage from a state where personal brands still beat party labels — the Sununu family name has won statewide races across four decades, and Pappas has his own: four terms holding a district that flips parties, a small-business biography, and a reputation for constituent work strong enough that Don Bolduc, the Republicans' own 2022 Senate nominee, endorsed him in October, citing bipartisanship and veterans work. Against that: this is, by every forecaster's account, a Democratic-leaning year nationally, Trump is unpopular in the state, and Pappas has outraised Sununu by millions. Two credible men, one structural headwind. What follows is each of them, claim by claim.

Chris Pappas (Democratic)

His platform: Pappas runs on housing and the cost of living, veterans — he sits on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee — and a promise on entitlements stated as plainly as any in this series: "I'll oppose any cuts to benefits, and I won't tell anyone they have to work longer to get what they've already earned." His is the standard Democratic platform on taxes and health care, delivered in the register of a man who has had to win Republican votes to survive: he won his House seat in a district Trump carried, and he has occasionally voted like it — this cycle he broke with most of his party to support the federal stablecoin licensing law and a bill exempting many crypto tokens from SEC registration. His endorsers range from the expected (Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the League of Conservation Voters) to the locally remarkable (Shaheen herself, and across the aisle, Bolduc).

The worst claims — and the record:

Claim: Pappas "lied about dating an Amazon lobbyist, then voted on bills Amazon lobbied on." This is the Senate Leadership Fund's centerpiece attack, now in a fresh ad calling him a "corrupt Washington insider" who is "out for himself." PolitiFact examined it and rated it Mostly False. The underlying facts: Pappas was in a relationship with an Amazon lobbyist; investigators found no evidence he actively lied about it. He cast seven votes on legislation Amazon tracked, but every vote matched the broader Democratic caucus, three aligned with positions he held before the relationship, and two ran against Amazon's interests. An ethics attorney consulted by PolitiFact said the circumstances would not have legally required recusal. There is a real question underneath the ad — voters are entitled to ask about lawmakers' household financial interests, and the SLF's newest version adds claims about Pappas's votes on suing his spouse's employer and on taxes. But the specific, quotable charge — he lied — is the part PolitiFact could not find evidence for.

Claim: Pappas is a Pelosi rubber stamp. Sununu's campaign makes this case from his House record, and it is true in the way it is true of most members: on the big partisan questions of the last eight years — taxes, health care, abortion access, spending — Pappas has voted with his party, because he agrees with his party. His bipartisan reputation rests on veterans and district work, and on races he has won that his party usually loses. Both halves are the record.

The flaw, plainly: Pappas is the strongest Democratic nominee in this series measured against our yardstick — a small-business owner, a veterans' advocate, a man a Republican nominee for this very seat looked at and endorsed. He is the closest thing here to the Manchin-and-Fetterman class of Democrat this publication treats as the exception. But the exception has a test, and it is not temperament: it is whether he would stand against his own party's platform where it conflicts with the Constitution, the free market, and the faith. On the evidence of eight years of House votes, he would not — he would caucus with, organize with, and deliver a majority to the party whose platform is the opposite of our values, and his own positions on abortion and federal spending are that platform's positions. A good man carrying the wrong program is still carrying the wrong program.

John E. Sununu (Republican)

His platform: Sununu is running on his record and on reform: "We need to shake up Washington with real reform," he said on primary night. The record from his Senate term (2003–2009) is not in dispute: rated 0 percent by NARAL and 100 percent by the National Right to Life Committee on a string of pro-life votes — the partial-birth abortion ban, parental notification, barring transport of minors across state lines for abortions. He wrote the law banning taxes on internet access. On entitlements, he was the Senate's leading champion of personal retirement accounts within Social Security — legislation to invest a share of FICA contributions in personal accounts, which he maintains was scored by Social Security's own actuaries as making the system solvent. In this campaign he has defended the 2025 Republican tax-and-spending law when asked — "no bill is perfect, but overall, I think it was right" — and he carries President Trump's endorsement.

The worst claims — and the record:

Claim: Sununu "tried to privatize Social Security" and would do it again. The first half is a fair description of his signature legislation, in the word his critics use and his supporters translate as personal accounts. What the attack leaves out is his defense, which is specific: the bill was scored by the Social Security actuaries as making the system solvent. What Sununu himself leaves out is the present tense. Pressed at an AARP forum and in the first debate for his current plan, he would not give one — conceding his old plan doesn't fit today's needs without naming the new one. Pappas's debate summary is partisan but the underlying fact is not: the moderator asked for a specific proposal, and none came. A candidate is entitled to have led the personal-accounts fight — this publication has no quarrel with market-based reform of a program heading for insolvency. He is not entitled to run on the record and decline to say whether he still holds it.

Claim: Sununu is a Trump critic turned Trump loyalist, as convenience required. The raw materials are documented: during the 2024 cycle Sununu wrote an op-ed calling Trump a "loser," backed Nikki Haley, and criticized Trump's tariff policies and the decision to launch military action in Iran without a clear plan. In 2026 he accepted Trump's endorsement and, per Pappas's account of closed-door remarks, told supporters this race "is important to President Trump's agenda." Asked in the debate which of Trump's controversial nominees he would have confirmed, he answered: "I wouldn't have voted for all three of those, and I'm not going to litigate each one of them." New Hampshire voters have a long tolerance for independents and a long memory for weathervanes. Which one Sununu is — a man who said hard things when they cost him and took the endorsement when it was offered, or a man trimming — is the character question of this race, and his refusal to answer specific questions is not helping his case.

The flaw, plainly: Sununu's stated values are our values: pro-life without apology, low taxes, market mechanisms inside entitlement reform, suspicion of federal overreach. His flaw is eighteen years and a pattern of absence — absent from the arena since 2009, absent from the specific answers in 2026. The Cornyn lesson from Texas was that a senator must represent his constituents, not Washington. Sununu's risk is the mirror image: a senator who represents a résumé, and whose positions, on the evidence of the "loser" op-ed and the unanswered debate questions, arrive when they are safe. Voters are being asked to trust that the convictions of 2005 are the convictions of 2027. He has made that trust harder to give than it needed to be.

The verdict: nobody gets our endorsement

Two men, and for once in this series, neither is disqualified by his platform.

Pappas's flaw is allegiance. He is the kind of Democrat our publication exists to persuade — and a vote for him is still a vote to organize the Senate for the other side's values, taxes, judges, and all. Proximity to our values is not possession of them.

Sununu's flaw is presence. The values are right; the man will not stand still inside them long enough to be measured. A senator who will not name his Social Security plan, name his confirmation votes, or reconcile his own words about the president whose endorsement he accepted has not yet earned the thing an endorsement certifies.

So: no endorsement. But a lean is a different thing from an endorsement, and ours runs to Sununu. Here is the research. Vote — in New Hampshire, that means planning for November 3 itself, or qualifying for an absentee ballot. Research your candidates. And weigh this: Pappas is the closest thing in this series to the Manchin-class Democrat, and his bipartisan work is real — the brokered bills, the veterans record, the Republican who ran for this seat four years ago endorsing him. But the exception has a test, and on the record that counts he fails it: 100 percent with Biden in 2021, against the Born-Alive bill, for the Equality Act, and ACA subsidies defended as permanence rather than a bridge. He is moderate in method, not in destination — and a vote for him is a vote to organize the Senate for the other side's values, which no amount of constituent service changes. Sununu is the opposite problem. His values record is right — 0 percent from NARAL, 100 percent from National Right to Life — and his flaw is that he is unproven and, so far, unanswering: absent from the arena for eighteen years, and in this campaign, as of late August and through the debates since, declining to state positions on the questions this term will actually be decided on, from data centers to the Medicaid cuts, and declining to name his Social Security plan or his confirmation votes. That silence is a real mark against him, and it is why this is a lean and not an endorsement: he is a must-prove-himself candidate. But an unproven man is a flaw a voter can price — if he trims, the record will show it and the voters can answer it. A wrong destination cannot be priced; it can only be arrived at. Sununu still has two weeks to start answering questions and turn a lean into something stronger — the seat is his to earn, and earning it starts with saying what he believes now.

Sources

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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