Pappas and Sununu Set for New Hampshire U.S. Senate General Election
The New Hampshire Senate contest pits a two-term Democratic House incumbent against a former Republican U.S. Senator, making it one of the most closely watched open-seat races in the 2026 cycle.
Democratic U.S. Representative Chris Pappas will face former Republican U.S. Senator John E. Sununu in New Hampshire's November general election for an open U.S. Senate seat, according to reporting by The Center Square via RealClearPolitics published September 8, 2026.
The seat is open, meaning neither candidate is the incumbent senator defending the position. The circumstances that created the vacancy were not specified in the available source material. What document would clarify this is the official Senate vacancy notice or the New Hampshire Secretary of State's certified election filing record.
Chris Pappas has represented New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was first elected in 2018 and re-elected in subsequent cycles, according to the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. His House voting record is publicly available through the congressional record at clerk.house.gov.
John E. Sununu previously served as a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire from 2003 to 2009, representing the Republican Party, according to the U.S. Senate's official biographical directory at bioguide.congress.gov. He lost his 2008 re-election bid to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu also previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2003, representing New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District, the same district Pappas currently holds.
New Hampshire is classified as a competitive general election state in U.S. Senate contests. The state has split its two Senate seats between parties in recent election cycles, with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Democrat Maggie Hassan holding both seats as of the most recent Senate roster. A Republican pickup of a New Hampshire Senate seat would represent a shift in the state's Senate delegation.
Campaign finance disclosures for both candidates are publicly available through the Federal Election Commission at fec.gov. As of the publication of this article, the total fundraising figures for the Pappas and Sununu Senate campaigns in this cycle have not been independently verified from FEC filings by this publication. Readers can access each candidate's official FEC filing page to review reported contributions, expenditures, and cash on hand.
The 2026 U.S. Senate map more broadly features a number of competitive races that will determine whether Republicans maintain, expand, or lose their Senate majority. The specific partisan lean assigned to the New Hampshire race by nonpartisan forecasters was not available in the source material reviewed for this story. Cook Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, and CNalysis publish publicly available race ratings that would provide that context.
Pappas, if elected, would move from the House to the Senate, a path taken by a number of members in recent cycles. Sununu, if elected, would return to the Senate after a 17-year absence. No polling data specific to the Pappas versus Sununu general election matchup was included in the source material available at the time of publication. State-level polling conducted by qualifying organizations and submitted to polling aggregators would be the appropriate source for that data.
What remains unknown at this stage includes the margin of each candidate's primary victory, the names of any primary opponents each faced, total campaign fundraising figures for the current cycle, and any endorsements from national party organizations or prominent officeholders. FEC quarterly and pre-general reports, along with official party press releases entered into the congressional record or published on party committee websites, would answer those questions.