John Sununu launches 2026 GOP Senate campaign in New Hampshire race

Special: RYE, NH — It’s been 15 years since Republicans won a US Senate election in a swing state New Hampshire.

But former Sen. John E. Sununu is confident that he can break his party’s losing streak.

“This is a race I know I can win,” Sununu told Fox News Digital last month.

Sununu launched his 2026 GOP Senate campaign earlier this week and explained Friday why he is the right person to flip the seat currently held by longtime Democratic Sen. Shinewho is retiring after next year. The seat is a strong target for Republicans, who are hoping to not only defend but extend their 53-47 majority in the Senate.

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Former New Hampshire Republican Sen. John E. Sununu, who is running to return to the Senate in 2026, is interviewed by Fox News Digital on October 24, 2025 in Rye, NH. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

“It’s the right message, the right set of issues and the right person,” Sununu told Fox News Digital, in his first national interview since announcing his candidacy.

Sununu is a former three-term representative who defeated then-Gov. Shaheen in New Hampshire’s 2002 Senate election. But lost to Senator Shaheen in 2008 match.

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Shaheen announced earlier this year that she would not seek re-election in next year’s midterms, and Republicans are working to flip the seat as they aim not just to defend, but to expand. Senate majority.

Now, after nearly two decades in the private sector, Sununu is returning to the campaign trail in New England’s only swing state.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, DN.H., is seen speaking at a policy event on October 22, 2024 in Concord, New Hampshire, saying she will not seek re-election next year. (AP Photo/Steven Sene)

Sununu said in his launch video that these days “Congress just seems loud, dysfunctional, even angry” and “he wants to get back to the Senate to help calm the waters.”

Asked if that’s the message Republicans want to hear, the former senator said: “They want to win. I think they want someone who advocates for New Hampshire and gets things done. Someone like me, who can go into the Oval Office and work to keep taxes down for New Hampshire, can work with the administration. President Trump.”

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Sununu said his “priorities are, affordability, keep taxes down, just give our state a strong, clear voice in Washington,” and he’s “taking that message across the state, meeting with activists, meeting with businesses, talking to them about their needs.”

“I’ve spent my life doing three things: standing up for New Hampshire, solving tough problems and working with people to get things done for New Hampshire. That’s what I’ll do as a senator,” he said.

Sununu is a brand name in New Hampshire politics. Former senator’s father, John H. Sununu is a former governor who later served as Chief of Staff in the White House of then-President George HW Bush. And one of his younger brothers is former governor Chris Sununu, who led the Granite State to four two-year terms and won re-election.

But Sununu won’t have a path to the GOP nomination.

Former Sen. Scott Brown, who kicked off his Republican Senate campaign in New Hampshire in June, is interviewed by Fox News Digital, July 4, 2025, in Exeter, NH. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)

Ex-Ambassador and Ex-Sen. Scott Brown, who was elected and served three years in the Senate in neighboring Massachusetts and who, as the 2014 GOP Senate candidate in New Hampshire, narrowly lost to Shaheen in her first re-election bid, jumped into the race in late June.

“Our campaign will have the resources needed for the long haul, and will allow us to campaign the way I know how: hard work and focused on the gritty politics that Granite State voters expect,” Brown said a few weeks after Fox News reported that he had raised nearly $1.2 million in the past three months.

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Brown has repeatedly taken aim at Sununu in the past month for the former Senate’s lack of support for Trump, who holds sway over the GOP.

Sununu served as the national co-chair of the 2016 Republican presidential campaign for then-Governor John Kasich of Ohio, who declined to endorse Trump as the party’s nominee.

and supported Sununu along with then-Gov. Chris Sununu, a former ambassador and former South Carolina governor. Nikki Haley In the 2024 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, she battled Trump for the nomination.

Former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, center, is joined by then-New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, as they visit a polling station to greet voters in the state’s first-ever national presidential primary election on Jan. 23, 2024, in Hampton, New Hampshire, New Hampshire. (Joe Riddle/Getty Images)

And on the eve of the nation’s first presidential primary, the former senator wrote an op-ed, “Donald Trump He’s a loser,” in the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state’s largest daily newspaper.

Brown endorsed Trump before his 2016 New Hampshire primary victory, which propelled him to the GOP presidential nomination and ultimately the White House. Brown later served as US ambassador to New Zealand during Trump’s first term.

“Anyone who thinks that Trump, a corporate lobbyist who hasn’t won an election in a quarter century, is living in a different world with today’s GOP primary voters. When John was supporting John Kasich in 2016, I was campaigning with Donald Trump,” Brown charged in a statement to Fox News Digital.

Asked about the criticism, Sununu said: “This race is about who is going to do the best job for New Hampshire, and I can work with the Trump administration on issues that are important to New Hampshire.”

Brown, pointing to Sununu’s past decade and a half in the private sector, argued that “while John was fighting for special interests, I was serving in the first Trump administration.”

and New Hampshire Democratic Party The former senator also opened up about his tenure in the private sector.

“John Sununu moved to Washington almost 30 years ago, then raised money, sold out to corporations and worked for Big Oil, Big Pharma and Wall Street, while New Hampshire people paid the price,” longtime state party chairman Ray Buckley argued in a statement. “The only reason Sununu wants to go back to Washington now is to sell New Hampshire to the same corporations and special interests that have lined his pockets for years. The Granite Staters won’t let him sell us out again.”

Sununu, pushing back, said: “I have never lobbied any member of Congress on any issue for any business. My work is in private sector technology.”

“We need a background in business and private sector experience in Washington. We don’t want lawyers making all the decisions in Washington,” added Sununu, a lawyer at Brown who served as dean of New England Law Boston after returning to the US at the end of the Trump administration.

Trump, in whose support Republican primaries Highly influential, neutral to date.

President Donald Trump, seen celebrating after winning the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary in Nashua, New Hampshire, on January 23, 2024, has remained neutral to date in the 2026 Senate primary in the Granite State. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo)

But the President may be willing to overlook Sunanu’s past.

Sen. of South Carolina. Tim Scott, a Trump ally and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, announced hours after Sunanu’s launch that the Senate GOP’s campaign arm would support the former senator’s bid.

And the Senate Leadership Fund, the top super PAC supporting Senate Republicans — who are aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and run by Trump global giants — praised Sununu.

Sununu told Fox News Digital that “he would definitely like to have his (Trump’s) endorsement and that, I think, will be helpful in the primary.”

“But the more endorsements and endorsements you get, the stronger your overall campaign will be,” he added as he listed several top New Hampshire Republicans who are now backing him, including Steve Stepanek, a longtime Trump Granite State ally who chaired the president’s 2016 campaign in New Hampshire and served as a senior campaign adviser last year.

“They have all joined this effort because they know I will be the best and most effective senator for the state of New Hampshire,” he said.

Democratic Senate candidate from New Hampshire, Rep. Chris Pappas, interviewed by Fox News Digital on July 4, 2025 in Portsmouth, NH. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News)

If he makes it to next September’s primary, Sununu will likely face four-term Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas.

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Pappas, who began campaigning for the Senate in early April, is the clear front-runner for his party’s nomination.