Former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu is considering a run to reclaim the seat he held two decades ago.
In an interview with WMUR, Sununu said after being encouraged by “people from New Hampshire” to run, he plans to travel the state, talk to voters and make up his mind by the end of October.
“We need to have someone to represent us, in New Hampshire, that has our values, that’s not going to vote a party line, that’s willing to take risks,” Sununu said. “I’m going to seriously consider a run.”
Sununu’s comments came the same day multiple media outlets, including NOTUS and the New York Times, reported that Sununu — an older brother of former Gov. Chris Sununu and son of former Gov. John H. Sununu — had been in touch with senior Republican leaders in Washington in what The Times called “months of courtship from party leaders.”
Top national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, had originally targeted Chris Sununu for the Senate race, but he opted to return to the private sector after serving four terms as governor and took a job last month as a lobbyist for the aviation industry.
John E. Sununu’s announcement is the latest development in a campaign that is among a handful of high-profile Senate races in 2026. Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is retiring after three terms, and Republicans view the open seat as an opportunity to pick up another vote in the Senate. Congressman Chris Pappas and Exeter scientist Karishma Manzur are the two Democrats to so far announce their candidacy for the open seat. Two Republicans — former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and state Sen. Dan Innis — are also running.
John E. Sununu would enter the race with plenty of advantages. His family name is all but synonymous with Republican politics in New Hampshire, and he has a lengthy political resume of his own. He served three terms representing New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District before being recruited by GOP leaders to run for Senate in 2002. Sununu ousted incumbent Sen. Bob Smith in the Republican primary before defeating Shaheen, who was then New Hampshire governor.
In 2008, Sununu lost a rematch with Shaheen. Since then, Sununu has sat on corporate boards, participated in business ventures with his family, and worked as a policy adviser for the Washington lobbying firm Akin Gump. Earlier this year, Sununu taught a class at St. Anselm College.
While he has not run for office in more than 15 years, Sununu has kept a toe in local electoral politics. During the 2016 presidential election, he served as New Hampshire chairman for the campaign of former Ohio Sen. John Kasich. In 2024, he endorsed the presidential bid of former South Carolina Sen. Nikki Haley.
Last year, Sununu helped lead the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan multistate effort to “restore confidence in America’s elections.”
Sununu’s voting record in Congress was reliably conservative, but the Republican Party has changed significantly since he last held office. Many of the issues Sununu focused on as a senator — including balanced budgets, entitlement reform, small government — have receded as priorities in the Trump-era GOP.
Sununu told WMUR his immediate focus will be to listen to New Hampshire voters, but said if he does run, he hopes to win Trump’s backing.
“I would want to win support, if I were to run, across the entire spectrum, and obviously that includes the president,” Sununu said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Should Sununu enter the race, it would likely improve Republicans’ prospects of reclaiming the seat.
In a statement, Pappas took aim at both Sununu and Brown, who ran unsuccessfully for this same seat in 2014.
“Granite Staters want a new generation of leadership that will stand up to Donald Trump and special interests and build an economy that works for everyone, not whoever national Republicans can pull from the bottom of their failed candidate barrel,” Pappas said. “Whether it’s corporate sellout John E. Sununu — who hasn’t held office in over two decades — or MAGA puppet Scott Brown, New Hampshire voters aren’t buying what the GOP is selling.”
