The Crucial Senate Race Dems Are Forgetting About

Chris Pappas’s Senate campaign in New Hampshire hasn’t gotten anywhere near as much attention as Abdul El-Sayed’s in Michigan or James Talarico’s in Texas. But the race is now looking dangerously close.

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The crucial Senate race Dems are forgetting about

New Hampshire isn’t on most Democrats’ list of competitive Senate races, but maybe it should be. Recent polling finds the contest between Democrat Chris Pappas and Republican John Sununu, who were officially confirmed as their parties’ candidates after winning Tuesday’s primary, within the margin of error. The race is one “Democrats can’t afford to toss aside,” Representative Pappas, who currently represents New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district, warned in late August. “If we can’t hold the Senate seat, then the math just doesn’t work in other states.”

Many Democrats have assumed that the New Hampshire Senate race is in the bag for Pappas, who is running to replace departing Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. The state’s congressional delegation is entirely Democratic, and President Trump’s approval rating has been falling in the state. Plus, Democrats have their work cut out for them in states like Michigan, Ohio, and Maine, and resources are finite.

But political experts in the state say that Pappas’s race appears competitive. Polls throughout the summer typically showed Pappas narrowly ahead of his opponent, former Representative and Senator John Sununu, but a late August poll showed Sununu up by two points. Inside Elections shifted the race from “Tilt Democratic” to “Toss-up” on September 3. The Cook Political Report rates the race “Lean D.”

“I don’t think this is going to be easy” for Democrats, said Wayne Lesperance, a professor of political science and the president of New England College. “The Republicans have chosen the best candidate they could.” He pointed to Sununu’s high name recognition from his time in office and his brother’s popularity as governor. Even though Sununu has Trump’s endorsement, he hasn’t mentioned it and has worked to distance himself from the unpopular president. “For a lot of voters, they see [Sununu] as sort of a throwback in a good way,” explained Christopher Galdieri, a professor of political science at Saint Anselm College. “He is really hammering hard in his advertising that he’s from back when Congress worked and politics wasn’t so loud and nasty.”

Pappas has some significant advantages, though. The unpopularity of Trump’s policies is a clear one—like Maine, New Hampshire has been hit hard by the tariff war with Canada and a decrease in Canadian tourism. “Anything that becomes a barrier to trade hurts the Granite State,” Lesperance said. The impact of tariffs “magnifies the challenges around affordability,” an issue that Democrats have been hammering nationwide this year. On Wednesday, the Pappas campaign released a list of the times Sununu has supported Trump’s agenda, trying to tie him to the president.

Pappas can also likely draw in New Hampshire’s undeclared voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate. These voters tend to mirror the state’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal values, explained Linda Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College. “The Republicans in Washington have not performed as the independent voters would like. In fact, they’ve been emphasizing social issues on the conservative side, and being very irresponsible fiscally.”

Pappas has won his elections in the swingy 1st congressional district since 2018, showing that he can appeal to these undeclared voters. Now Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of the retiring senator, is running for that seat. In the state’s only other congressional district, incumbent Representative Maggie Goodlander will face a rematch with Republican Lily Tang Williams.

Pappas may also benefit from national Democratic figures eager to campaign with him in New Hampshire ahead of 2028. Rumored presidential contenders Senator Mark Kelly and Representative Ro Khanna have spent time in the state in recent weeks. Pete Buttigieg campaigned with Pappas in February and will return in early October for a state Democratic Party fundraiser.

In addition to the tariff issue, housing affordability is a major concern in New Hampshire, and one that has been relatively underemphasized so far in the Senate race. The professors who spoke to The New Republic on Wednesday said that they’re looking for either of the candidates to come up with convincing solutions to the state’s high property taxes and low housing stock.

Democratic groups like WinSenate, which is affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer–aligned Senate Majority PAC, said it plans to spend over $10 million on television ads for the race. The Senate GOP-aligned PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, has pledged to spend $17 million on the race, and Elon Musk’s America PAC is jumping in to boost conservative candidates in the state.

The risk that Pappas could be wildly outspent by Republicans and their allies is part of why his campaign and outside observers are getting nervous. “I think the good news for Pappas is that people are having these discussions now, at the beginning of September and not October 25,” said Galdieri. “Which means there’s time.”

Wondering how Trump’s ongoing trade wars could affect the midterm elections? Stateline’s Kevin Hardy has a useful overview of the potential effects in the Midwest and several New England states. Ohio comes in for particular attention. “Canada is Ohio’s biggest export market, sending $17.5 billion in goods across the border,” writes Hardy, and “Canadian data show countermeasures will hit Ohio harder than any other state.” It’s not hard to imagine that this will be a factor in the Senate face-off between Republican Jon Husted and Democrat Sherrod Brown. (Recent polling mostly shows Brown with a single-digit lead.)

Republican Brandon Herrera, running in Texas’s 23rd congressional district, is brushing off concerns about an array of offensive comments he reportedly made about women, fat people, and homeless people, saying they were “jokes.” He also responded to criticism of his disparaging remarks about feminists by pointing to Democratic opponent Katy Padilla Stout’s work on one case where, according to The Guardian, she “was appointed as a defense attorney for a father seeking to restore parental rights after a domestic abuse allegation.” There has not been much polling on this race.

—Heather Souvaine Horn

Friday at 1 p.m., the Brookings Institution hosts an in-person and online event on “The 9/11 terrorist attacks at 25: Assessing the legacy, addressing the future.” Maryland Governor Wes Moore will deliver a keynote. Other speakers include American University professor Tricia Bacon and numerous Brookings fellows and directors, including Jeffrey Feltman, Fonteh Akum, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Ben Harris, Robert Kagan, William A. Galston, Marla Karlin, Suzanne Maloney, and Melanie W. Sisson. New York Times national security correspondent Eric Schmitt will also join as a moderator.

At the Center for American Progress, Ben Hovland offers “5 Quick Steps to Protect Your Right to Vote.” These include checking your registration but also, crucially, voting “as soon as you are ready. Early in-person voting and other options add resilience to the election process. If something unexpected comes up, whether that is with your voter record or simply because life gets busy, voting early gives you more time and options.”

—Heather Souvaine Horn

Here’s Why That’s B.S.

Watch TNR’s Edie Olmsted tackle Trump’s bizarre new story that firemen carried him out of danger at Ground Zero shortly after the attacks on the Twin Towers.

Political Trivia Question of the Day

On this day before September 11: Before 9/11 became 9/11, remembered for the horrific events it’s remembered for, Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was what day in New York City? (Sign up for The TNR Blue Book to find the answer in Tuesday’s newsletter.)

This Could Be the Biggest Issue of 2027. Dems Are Split on It.

Democrats need a unified AI plan. Instead, they have a bunch of competing proposals.

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This could be the biggest issue of 2027. Dems are split on it.

Representative Lori Trahan has been positioning herself as a leader on artificial intelligence policy—so much so that she passed up a chance at a leadership role to instead focus on AI policy, she told Politico in an interview published Tuesday. Polls show voters’ concern over artificial intelligence is rising rapidly, whether it’s because of cybersecurity risks, data centers, or job loss. But it’s not yet clear which Democrats—and which proposals—might lead the way in a Democratic-led House come January.

Trahan’s legislation, the FRONTIER Act, is co-written with GOP Representative Jay Obernolte, and would give the government the authority to pause the deployment of risky AI models. Advocates for the bill say that it introduces safety guardrails while remaining flexible and without stifling innovation.But Trahan’s bill is one of a number of proposals Democrats have floated in recent months. And it’s not clear that hers is the one the party would support. In fact, some experts are concerned that Trahan’s bill might do more harm than good due to its preemption of state-level AI legislation, where the federal legislation would block states from making their own policies that go further. “The irony of the FRONTIER Act is that it draws inspiration from the California and New York AI laws,” said Amos Toh, a senior counsel and manager at the Brennan Center, referencing legislation passed by the two states that requires frontier AI labs to establish a framework for risk management and report safety breaches to the state. The New York bill, the RAISE Act, was championed by state Representative Alex

Bores, who lost his primary for Congress after AI-affiliated PACs spent millions against him.”Because of the political paralysis in Congress, [states] are the ones that are leading the thinking and development of what AI regulation should look like,” Toh added. Preempting state regulation “should give us all pause.” Jeff

Hauser, the founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project, agrees with Toh’s concerns. He said it’s a matter of “legislative humility,” arguing that preemption assumes the federal approach is more correct than what states could legislate, a dangerous assumption given how fast the AI industry is changing.

Trahan and Obernolte addressed the preemption issue in late July, editing the original draft of the bill to decrease—but not fully eliminate—what the bill preempts. The latest version of the legislation would still preempt states on mandatory incident reporting and third-party audits of AI labs. “The FRONTIER Act does not ban states from regulating artificial intelligence. In fact, it expressly preserves state authority to protect kids online, and to enforce the civil rights, consumer protection, and privacy laws that govern how AI is developed, deployed, and used,” Trahan wrote in a newsletter sent to constituents.Trahan is not the only Democratic lawmaker who has been positioning herself as a leader on AI. In July, Representative Ted Lieu also unveiled a bipartisan proposal, the AI Kill Switch Act, which would require AI labs to report security incidents and create a mechanism to shut down their most powerful models. Lieu is a member of the recently created House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy, alongside Representatives Valerie Foushee, Josh Gottheimer, Frank Pallone Jr., and Zoe Lofgren. Henry Burke, a researcher at the Revolving Door Project, criticized those appointments, arguing that the commission’s members are too entangled with Big Tech.

Representative Greg Casar has also unveiled a series of bills related to AI this year,........

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