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CONCORD, N.H. – A Republican running to flip a blue Senate seat in a crucial battleground state is flipping the script on the Democrats’ anti-incumbent argument.
Former Sen. John E. Sununu, the GOP Senate nominee who’s running to return to Capitol Hill after 18 years away, charges that his Democratic rival, Rep. Chris Pappas, has “been in Washington for 8 years and hasn’t delivered for New Hampshire.”
Sununu and Pappas are facing off in the midterm election in the battle to succeed retiring longtime Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in a race that’s one of roughly a dozen that will determine if Republicans hold their control of the Senate.
“He has attempted very little in Congress. He’s accomplished even less,” Sununu said in an exclusive Digital interview this week, as he blasted Pappas, a four-term congressman.
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Sununu was interviewed ahead of a move by the Cook Political Report, a top nonpartisan campaign handicapper, to shift the race in New Hampshire from lean Democrat to toss-up. Earlier this month another leading nonpartisan handicapper, Inside Elections, also changed their rating to toss-up.
It was a rare move in favor of the Republicans amid a political cycle where the GOP is facing traditional political headwinds for the party in power in DC. Republicans are also confronting an extremely rough political climate fueled by persistent inflation, soaring fuel prices due to the ongoing war with Iran, and President Donald Trump’s underwater approval ratings.
So what’s Sununu’s secret sauce?
Part of it is his last name, which is a political brand in New Hampshire. Sununu’s father, John E. Sununu, served six years as governor before heading to Washington, D.C. as then-President George H.W. Bush’s White House chief of staff. And one of his younger brothers, Chris Sununu, recently served eight years as governor before taking a break from politics.
But also boosting Sununu, his strategy to blast Pappas as a do-nothing member of Congress during another anti-incumbent election cycle, which is a turn of the tables on the Democrats’ playbook.
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Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, a U.S. Senate candidate, is joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of neighboring Massachusetts, at a campaign stop in Dover, N.H. on Sept. 5, 2026. (Jessica Sonkin/)
“He’s been on the Transportation Committee for 8 years, and New Hampshire is dead last in highway funding in New England. That hurts New Hampshire. His ineffectiveness is doing damage to the state because we’re not getting the support we need from Washington,” Sununu claimed.
While it doesn’t rank dead last in every single metric or category, New Hampshire receives some of the lowest total and per-capita levels of federal funding for roads, highways, and bridges of any state in the country, according to federal and state figures.
Pappas, earlier this year, introduced the Highway Fair Share Act, a bill to increase federal funding for infrastructure and transportation projects for New Hampshire by requiring that each state receive at least .5% of the total federal-aid highway formula funding.
Pappas and the rest of the all-Democratic congressional delegation in June highlighted $9 million in federal funding for New Hampshire projects.
“Chris Pappas has led efforts to expand healthcare benefits for 3.5 million veterans, bring high-speed internet to towns across New Hampshire, put more money back in the pockets of working parents, and secure millions of dollars to improve and repair roads, bridges, and buildings,” Pappas Campaign Manager Rachel Petri told Digital, as she shared a long list of funding accomplishments by the congressman.
Petri said, “Chris is rated among the most effective and bipartisan lawmakers and his record stands in stark contrast to John Sununu’s record of voting to cut Medicare, leading efforts to privatize Social Security, and backing Donald Trump’s tariffs and war with Iran.”
Sununu’s anti-incumbent argument is a bit ironic, considering he spent six years in the House and a term in the Senate before losing a rematch with then-former Gov. Shaheen in the 2008 election.
Looking back at his years on Capitol Hill, Sununu touted his record “of writing and passing legislation under Democrat presidents, Republican presidents, a Democrat Congress, Republican Congress.”
But he also emphasized, “I’ve been in the private sector for the last 16 years. That’s a good thing, working for tech firms and small businesses, the Waterville Valley ski area [the Sununu family has had a controlling interest in the resort since 2010], teaching college. It’s… a perspective that I think is missing from Washington.”
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Pappas, in a recent Digital interview, highlighted that New Hampshire is “a state of voters who are pragmatic, who want their lives to be better and want problems to be solved, and I can demonstrate the ways that I’ve been working on those issues.”
“It’s expanding access to health care, building more affordable housing in New Hampshire, and ensuring that we’re standing up to an administration that’s ignoring the day to day concerns of Granite Staters,” he added.
But Sununu wasn’t the only one taking aim at Pappas as a do-nothing incumbent. Even his longshot socialist rival in last week’s primary took a shot.
First time candidate and scientist Karishma Manzur, in a recent Digital interview, charged that “all [Pappas] wants to do is just get his little cushy job and go to D.C., go to all these parties and these restaurants and just do whatever the bare minimum is.”
Pappas ended up crushing Manzur in the primary by a two-to-one margin, and Sununu defeated former Sen. Scott Brown in a landslide to capture the GOP nomination.
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Democratic congressional candidate Karishma Manzur speaks to voters at a campaign stop in Dover, New Hampshire, on Sept. 3, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/)
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With the general election sprint underway, Republican-aligned outside groups are now pouring millions into the state to target Pappas. And Pappas is using this week’s Cook Political Report race rating to ring an alarm.
“MAGA super PACs are pouring millions of dollars a week into New Hampshire to try to flip this seat. And this race is officially a Toss Up,” he warned on social media.
And Pappas told Digital recently that Sununu is “backed up by out of state special interests and dark money in this campaign. They’re outspending us 3 to 1 on TV.”
Firing back, this week a Democrat-aligned super PAC started running ads charging that after he left the Senate Sununu cashed in by working for lobbying firms.
Sununu was endorsed earlier this year by Trump, and since then Democrats have repeatedly tied the president, whose approval ratings are well into negative territory in New Hampshire, to Sununu.
Pappas called Sununu Trump’s “hand-picked candidate.”
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Asked about the full court press by Pappas and Democrats to anchor him to Trump, Sununu told Digital, “I’ve never even met the president.”
But contrasting himself with Pappas, Sununu added that “there’s no question I’ll be a much more effective voice with this administration.”
