New Hampshire’s Senate Race Leans Dem, but the State Is—Well, You Know

Democrats think the New Hampshire Senate contest is in the bag. But the Granite State has surprised us before.

Of all the American political traditions we’ve lost in Trump times, one of them never got its moment of silence: “As New Hampshire goes, so goes the nation.”

That chestnut rested on New Hampshire’s status as host of the first presidential primary election. When I was growing up there, we earnestly believed our parents were a solid-gold prediction market. Whoever they picked would land on the national ticket. New Hampshire was the belle of the primary season ball then, and many rural kids got their first taste of politics when they spotted George W. Bush or Barack Obama campaigning in a local Grange hall.

But in 2024, the Democratic National Committee jilted New Hampshire and chose South Carolina to vote first in the presidential primary. Last month, the state was snubbed again. South Carolina will once again kick off the Democratic primaries in 2028.

But New Hampshire will be damned if Americans take it, so to speak, for granite. Fortunately this year’s Senate race is a nail-biter, and Republicans view the race as one of their pickup opportunities. Sure, the contest doesn’t have the earthquake vibes of Talarico-Paxton in Texas or El Sayed-Rogers in Michigan. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with a thick plot, suspense, and some good twists.

First off, the candidates. Odds are on Republican John E. Sununu and Democratic Representative Chris Pappas to win their respective primaries on September 8. They’ll then vie for the seat of three-term Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who announced her retirement in March. According to Polymarket, Sununu’s and Pappas’s chances of winning their primaries (against MAGA Scott Brown and DSA Karishma Manzur) are over 90 percent, though one recent poll showed Manzur, a biochemist and peace activist, gaining on Pappas.

If Sununu and Pappas indeed prevail, the race will make New Hampshire seem as though it’s decorously dodging the MAGA–Democratic Socialists of America blood feud and banishing ideologues right and left. But on the stump, the candidates........

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