ന്യൂ ഹാംഷെയറിൽ ഡെമോക്രാറ്റ് സ്ഥാനാർത്ഥി ക്രിസ് പാപ്പസിന് റിപ്പബ്ലിക്കൻ സ്ഥാനാർത്ഥി ജോൺ ഇ. സുനുനുവിൽ നിന്ന് കടുത്ത മത്സരം നേരിടേണ്ടി വരുന്നു. ട്രംപിന്റെ സ്വാധീനവും സുനുനു കുടുംബത്തിന്റെ ജനപ്രീതിയും റിപ്പബ്ലിക്കൻ പാർട്ടിക്ക് ഗുണകരമാകുന്നു. തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് ഫലം പ്രവചനാതീതമായി മാറിയതോടെ ഇരു പാർട്ടികളും തമ്മിലുള്ള പോരാട്ടം സംസ്ഥാനത്ത് ഏറെ ശ്രദ്ധയാകർഷിക്കുകയാണ്.
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- In a year where Democrats are expanding the map of competitive Senate seats into deep-red states, they are facing a surprising source of angst in New Hampshire, which rejected President Donald Trump three times.
Republican John E. Sununu has many factors working in his favor in his campaign against Rep. Chris Pappas (D). He has high name recognition as a former senator from the early 2000s. He shares a last name with two popular former governors, and some voters said they don't know that he's a different Sununu. He maintains an endorsement from Trump while disagreeing with him on some unpopular policies, including Canadian tariffs and the war in Iran. Republicans have outspent Democrats in the state.
Some Republicans also believe having popular Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, who is favored to win reelection, at the top of the ballot will help Sununu.
Recent polls by the University of New Hampshire and the New York Times/Siena University showed Pappas with eight and five point leads, respectively, though some polls have shown Sununu leading or even with Pappas. The nonpartisan election prognosticator Cook Political Report recently shifted the race from "Lean Democratic" to "toss up" even while moving other ratings in Democrats' favor.
The competitiveness of New Hampshire's Senate race is somewhat surprising in a state former Vice President Kamala Harris carried by 2.8 percentage points in 2024.
In many years, Sununu's advantages might be enough to win in a state known for political independence and electing politicians from both parties. Yet interviews with dozens of voters in Merrimack, Hillsborough and Rockingham counties found an electorate where Trump is so unpopular (a recent UNH poll showed a 33 percent approval rating in the state) that voters appeared more inclined to cast their ballots based on the Senate candidates' party affiliations in an election they view as a referendum on Trump's presidency.
"I used to vote for either party based on the candidate," said Mark Hargreaves, a 72-year-old Derry resident who voiced strong opposition to Trump. "However, given recent events, I will not vote for a Republican."
Why the race matters
The race to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) is critical to Democratic efforts to flip control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53 to 47 majority. Democrats' clearest path to retaking the majority involves maintaining control of the seats they hold and flipping at least four Republican-controlled seats, in large part by trying to capitalize on voter frustrations with Trump.
Sununu, 62, has sought to keep the race local and demonstrate independence from the White House. He has broadly avoided engaging with national media during the campaign, and his campaign declined Washington Post requests for an interview.
He accepted an endorsement from Trump in February, allowing him to coast to the Republican nomination in September's primary. Now, the endorsements section of Sununu's campaign website doesn't list his most famous backer. Sununu has said Trump was wrong to start a war with Iran, criticized Trump's adversarial trade policy with Canada and argued Congress needs to reclaim power from the executive branch. He even published an op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader in 2024, before his campaign, headlined "Donald Trump is a loser."
But Sununu is also counting on the president's supporters and money to help his campaign.
A debate over independence
On the trail, he avoids explicitly criticizing Trump. He has praised the Iran war for weakening Iran and its nuclear program, and declined to endorse a congressional war powers resolution meant to stop the conflict. He backed Trump's signature domestic legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that cut social services and other spending to fund tax cuts largely benefiting the wealthy. And he broadly defends the premise of Trump's tariffs even while criticizing those imposed on Canada, a trading partner of New Hampshire.
"Granite Staters are going to know that John Sununu is a vote for Donald Trump's reckless agenda," Pappas, who has served in Congress since 2019, said in an interview. "He's been a pretty consistently conservative voice on the issues, where he's out of step with the voters of the Granite State."
Sununu campaign spokesperson Mike Schrimpf defended Sununu's independence in a statement to The Post.
"John has said he will have just one job as Senator: be an independent voice who will fight for the people of New Hampshire every single day, including standing up to the White House when it serves New Hampshire," Schrimpf wrote, criticizing Pappas as a "partisan insider" and "a politician who always puts his political party first."
Pappas, 46, has also sought to portray himself as an independent voice, though he doesn't talk much about how he would break from his own party.
When asked for a policy where he would break with Democratic leadership in the Senate, he cited a handful of times in the House when he pushed back against the Biden administration, including when he repeatedly criticized Biden's handling of the southern border. He would not commit to endorsing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) as Democrats' leader in the chamber and he said party leadership was "flat-footed" at the beginning of Trump's second term.
Pappas, who has led a relatively low-key campaign characterized by small events across the state, is largely aligned with the Democratic Party's mainstream. He lacks the large national profile of some other Democratic Senate candidates, such as Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, and is not seen as being on the leading edge of any high-profile policy. If elected, he would make history as the first openly gay male senator.
But when asked for their reasons for supporting Pappas voters rarely mentioned him by name. Many instead cited their opposition to Trump and the importance of Democrats gaining control of the Senate.
And New Hampshire voters of both parties said that they expect Sununu to be a reliable vote for Trump's agenda in Congress if elected.
"I don't view [Sununu] as independent-thinking," Laura Mick, 48, said in an interview in downtown Manchester. "He doesn't seem in-touch with the average person, and I think he'll vote with Trump." Mick, who described herself as "center-left," plans to support Pappas.
Hargreaves, the Derry resident, predicted Sununu would "be a rubber stamp for everything Trump and MAGA wants."
Jim Demers, a Democratic strategist in New Hampshire, said the election reminds him of the 2006 midterms, when New Hampshire voters disapproved of then-President George W. Bush and Democrats had a "huge, unexpected batch of wins across the board."
"People have seen and heard over the past two years a lot of Republicans in Washington who have tried to sound like they're not with Trump, but every time a vote comes up, they are," Demers said. "People are really annoyed with the rhetoric that they hear that isn't backed up by action."
The contest, in some ways, is also a battle between two prominent statewide brands: Sununu, whose brother Chris Sununu was New Hampshire's governor from 2017 to 2025 and whose father John H. Sununu led the state in the 1980s; and Pappas, whose family has for generations run a popular restaurant in Manchester and whose grandfather is credited for inventing the chicken tender.
"The Sununu family has done a lot of good for this state, and I think he [John] will do the same," said Elizabeth Johnson, a stay-at-home mother backing Sununu, said in an interview outside a cafe in Portsmouth.
Sununu may also be benefiting from voters mistaking his identity with his brother, who left office in 2025 with an approval rating near 60 percent. Cook, the election prognosticator, cited the confusion as a factor in their toss-up rating.
Sununu's yard signs, displayed prominently in fields and paths across the state, don't say his first name. Instead, they just read "Sununu / Senator."
Even Pappas took aim at the popular Sununu family, accusing Sununu in the interview of "coasting on his family name." But he also downplayed concerns about confusion, saying voters would know the difference between the Sununu family members by November.
When asked about the confusion, Sununu has made light of voters mixing the two up ("I'm sure when Chris ran, people thought he was me, he told PBS) while emphasizing his own record in Congress and rejecting that his family name is carrying his candidacy.
Some New Hampshire residents speaking to The Post mixed up which Sununu is on the ballot. One, who said she follows politics, said there were "lots of things" she didn't like about him when he was governor.
"I liked him as governor," said Robert Drew, a 33 year-old sales employee and Manchester resident. "I've met him personally, so I like him on a personal level."
When corrected, Drew, an independent who described himself as "more conservative-leaning" and said he has gone "back-and-forth" between Democrats and Republicans in elections, said that he has also had "positive" interactions with John Sununu.