Former Sen. John Sununu is headed back to the general election ballot. NBC News and CBS News both projected Tuesday night that Sununu won the Republican primary for the New Hampshire Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, beating out former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and two lesser-known candidates.
Decision Desk HQ called the race for Sununu at 8:00 p.m. EDT, with the former senator building on polling that had shown him well ahead of Brown throughout the campaign.
Sununu, 61, is looking to reclaim the seat he lost to Shaheen in 2008. He served three terms in the U.S. House before winning election to the Senate in 2002, and has spent nearly two decades in the private sector since leaving Washington. He's framed his comeback bid around lowering the political temperature, saying Congress has become "loud, dysfunctional, even angry."
He now faces Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in November, who defeated democratic socialist Karishma Manzur in the Democratic primary. Pappas was endorsed by Shaheen herself.
The matchup gives Republicans their best shot at a New Hampshire Senate seat since Kelly Ayotte's 2010 win, the last time the GOP carried the state. Sununu brings a well-known family name, having served alongside his father, former Gov. John H. Sununu, and brother, current Gov. Chris Sununu. But Democrats note that Sununu carries baggage of his own: he backed Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the 2024 primary and once called Trump a "loser" in an op-ed, a history his opponents are likely to revisit as the general election heats up.
