Author’s Note: Other 2026 forecasts can be found in the Central File.
I. The Race
John Sununu (Republican) is from the well-known Sununu political family of New Hampshire, and once held the exact Senate seat he’s seeking in 2026. He won it in 2002, but lost it to Jeanne Shaheen in the 2008 Obama wave. Shaheen is now retiring, prompting Sununu’s latest run.
Chris Pappas (Democrat) is the sitting U.S. House Representative for NH-1, a seat he won in 2018 and has defended three times since. Despite New Hampshire’s competitive disposition, Pappas is largely focusing his campaign on “get Trump” themes, which may backfire on him given his opponent’s clout.
II. State Profile
The Granite State is, by far, the most conservative of the six New England States. Like Maine, it was once a GOP stronghold; it voted for all but six Republican presidential nominees from 1856 through 1988, but has only backed one (George W. Bush, 2000) since then. Still, it generally elects Republican governors and surrounds them with GOP legislatures and plays an oversized role in early primaries.
New Hampshire is overwhelmingly white, and like its neighbors, has rural progressivism. These folks love their land and tolerate the guns, but aren’t down with the southern brand of evangelical influence that drives the modern Republican Party. This was obvious in the lopsided 2008 and 2012 presidential setbacks; however, Trump’s push in 2016 focused on the opioids epidemic and piqued the interest of New Hampshire’s white working class voter base. Strangely, the state’s two most populous counties (Hillsborough and Rockingham), situated along Massachusetts’ northern border, are the keys to Republican wins and are substantially more conservative than many counties in the state’s interior. New Hampshire, presidentially speaking, votes well to the left of its voter registration advantage, signifying frustrating levels of GOP crossover to Democrat federal candidates and the left-leaning nature of unaffiliated voters.
Key Statistics
88.3% White, 4.3% Hispanic, 2.6% Asian
III. Market Assessment
Polymarket transactions have Pappas as the 89% favorite; he is definitely overpriced on this market, despite the dynamics of a Trump midterm.
IV. History
In the 2002 midterms, one of the few since 1934 to have favored the president’s party, Sununu defeated Shaheen by 4.5% for this exact seat:
In 2008, Barack Obama won the Granite State by double digits; Sununu performed better than John McCain, but this time dropped the seat to Shaheen by 6.3%. She has successfully defended it twice, in 2014 and 2020. It drifted right from the 2012 presidential election with standard midterm dynamics in 2014, and she won her race over Scott Brown, former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts by 3.2%. She won her last race in a blowout, more than 8 points left of Biden’s win over Trump.
In the other seat, the one occupied by Maggie Hassan, the 2022 midterm featured a blowout despite Biden occupying the White House. The GOP nominated Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) Don Bolduc, and he went on to lose by 9.2%.
Hassan first won the seat by an eyelash in the 2016 election from Kelly Ayotte, who extended a streak of GOP dominance stretching back to 1981 when she first won the seat in the 2010 wave. With Ayotte’s ouster, New Hampshire normalized its U.S. Senate seats to its standard presidential disposition - blue, but not overwhelmingly so.
In 2002 and 2022, New Hampshire Senate seats favored the president’s party by margin shift. In 2010 and 2014, they blew against it. This means that Trump’s presidency gives Pappas no guarantee of a margin to the left of Harris’s +2.8% mark from the 2024 presidential election.
V. Analysis of 2026 Primary Results
Both Sununu and Pappas prevailed over primary challengers.