Republican John Sununu is mounting an unexpectedly competitive bid to be New Hampshire’s next US senator by pretending, as much as practicable, that President Donald Trump doesn’t exist.
A member of a New Hampshire political dynasty who served in the Senate from 2003 to 2009, Sununu rarely invokes Trump’s name even though the president endorsed him in the primary. He skipped his party’s midterm convention last month. He’s never met Trump and doesn’t want the president or other prominent Republicans to visit the state on his behalf.
“I don’t need anybody to come in and campaign for me,” Sununu said. “It’s just not going to make a difference to me. I don’t think it makes a difference to the people in New Hampshire.”
The next three-plus weeks will determine whether Sununu can pull far enough away from Trump in a state the president’s lost three times and where his approval rating fell to a record-low 32% last month. An upset win over US Representative Chris Pappas on Nov. 3 would debilitate Democrats’ push to gain the four seats needed for a Senate majority, snatching a seat now held by retiring Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.
Read More: Embattled Republicans Rebuff Trump as Their Senate Races Tighten
Polls show a tight race, though Pappas got a boost earlier this week when the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the contest from a tossup to leaning Democrat. The two candidates are scheduled to debate for the first time on Oct. 13.
Pappas and other Democrats are seeking to tie Sununu to Trump’s agenda, highlighting comments he’s made on the campaign trail suggesting support for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the war in Iran.
But Sununu argues he’ll be an independent voice in Washington and oppose any policies that aren’t good for New Hampshire. He often points out that most of his six-year term would be under another president, urging voters to think longer term.
On the trail, Sununu rarely leads with his disagreements with Trump. But when asked by voters or reporters, he cites the trade war with Canada, Trump’s ill-fated $1.8 billion fund for purported victims of political prosecutions, and the president’s proposed $5,000 payouts to Americans if they deliver both the House and Senate to Republicans.
Sununu also says he’s believed from the start that it was a mistake to go into Iran without a plan to protect the Strait of Hormuz, though in a March podcast interview he said the war was helping the US achieve its national security interests.
The candidate also highlights the times when he’s bucked his own party, although his chosen examples underscore just how long ago he last served in Congress.
Talking to reporters last week at a fair in Deerfield, he name-checked car safety legislation he co-sponsored with Hillary Clinton, then a New York senator, when George W. Bush was president. Sununu also pointed to his 2007 call for Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, to resign in the face of a government investigation.
Political ‘Throwback’
Sununu’s positioning himself as “really a throwback to a different era of Republicans in New Hampshire,” the sort of low-tax, low-regulation Republican “who’s not frothing at the mouth about abortion or gay marriage” and other cultural issues, said Christopher Galdieri, a politics professor at Saint Anselm College.
Trump’s endorsement came even though Sununu supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Sununu even wrote an op-ed that labeled Trump a “loser.”
But the president cited Sununu’s support among Republican senators and state leaders, choosing him over Scott Brown, a former US senator from Massachusetts who served as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa in Trump’s first term and now lives in New Hampshire. The nod came seven months before New Hampshire’s September primary without the protracted public favor-currying that candidates in Texas and other states endured.
The Sununu name is recognizable for many New Hampshire voters. Sununu’s father, also named John, was governor in the 1980s and was President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff. His brother Chris served as governor from 2017 to 2025, when he enjoyed some of the nation’s highest approval ratings.
Democrats like to posit that Sununu benefits from voters who mistakenly believe the popular ex-governor is the one running for Senate, a claim that rankles the actual candidate. “There’s really very, very little confusion,” he said. He pointed to fair-goers in Deerfield who shouted his name as he power-walked the grounds, including two high schoolers who were rewarded with a selfie. Another fair-goer, however, confused the brothers in an interview.
The family ties cut both ways. Debra Locke, a maple farmer from Northwood, said she’s leaning toward voting for Sununu in part because she likes “their family ethics.” Patricia Woodward of Seabrook, on the other hand, said all the Sununus “just kind of need to go away.” She voiced support for Pappas because of how infrequently Republicans stand up to Trump.
Outsider Status
Both candidates are attempting to claim outsider status in an election marked by voter dissatisfaction with the status quo, while accusing their opponent of being an insider. Sununu ties Pappas, who’s been in the House since 2019, to recent congressional dysfunction.
While Pappas has campaigned with Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and former US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in recent weeks, Sununu has shied from bringing in prominent out-of-staters other than Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana in June.
Pappas criticizes Sununu’s long career at law and lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, as well as his ultimately unsuccessful efforts to overhaul Social Security while in the Senate. The Democrat has been spotlighting Sununu’s effort to shift some Social Security funding into investment accounts, deriding it as a risky privatization of retiree benefits. The issue is a particularly touchy one in New Hampshire, where the average age is the third highest in the US, trailing only Maine and Vermont.
Sununu says he’s open to making another attempt at revamping Social Security if he gets elected — a one-time Republican priority that’s fallen by the wayside under Trump.
Boosting Sununu is his $8.6 million advantage over Pappas in ad spending, according to AdImpact. Still, even the most bullish Sununu supporters acknowledge that Trump weighs heavily on the campaign.
If Trump’s favorability numbers were in the mid- to high-40s instead of the 30s, “then John Sununu would win by 10 or 15 points,” said Mike Dennehy, a Republican strategist in the state. Trump “is going to have an impact. It’s just a question of how much.”