This year’s Republican New Hampshire Senate primary pits two former members of that chamber against each other: John E. Sununu, who is looking to retake the seat he last held in 2009, and Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010 to 2013. As Sununu and Brown campaign, both men are making the argument that their records in Washington prove their political independence. But while both men served in the Senate, they cut distinct profiles there — from the issues they focused on, to the expectations that accompanied them.
“The political ceiling for John Sununu always appeared a great deal higher than the ceiling for Scott Brown,” said UNH political scientist Dante Scala. “I mean, no one expected Scott Brown to be a U.S. senator. So the expectations for Brown becoming a leader of the party were always low, whereas for Sununu they were quite high.”
Here’s an overview of the two men’s earlier tours of the Senate, which they both hope to resume this year.
How they got there
Brown’s and Sununu’s paths to Washington were distinct: When Sununu won election in 2002, he was 39 years old, but had already served three terms as a congressman from New Hampshire. Being the eldest son of former governor and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu certainly helped the younger Sununu get to Washington. But once there, he quickly earned a reputation as a conservative capable of leading on complex policy issues.
Few have called the younger Sununu charismatic, but many expected him to enjoy a long future in national politics. That’s one reason why, in 2002, national Republican leaders conscripted him to challenge then-New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith, who had worn out his welcome with GOP leaders by pursuing fringe policies and briefly quitting the party.
Sununu defeated Smith in the 2002 Republican primary, and went on the win against then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the general election. When he was sworn into the Senate, John E. Sununu was its youngest member.
Brown also had an auspicious start in the Senate: He basically arrived in Washington in 2010 as a political celebrity.
When he sought the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, few gave him any chance of winning. He faced Democrat Martha Coakley, who was Massachusetts attorney general at the time. He was a former male model who had worked his way from selectman to state representative to a low-profile state senator.
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But Brown, campaigning doggedly by pickup truck, caught on as Coakley stumbled. Brown promised to be an independent voice, but to also give Republicans the crucial vote they believed they’d need to block the Affordable Care Act. By the end of the race, he’d become a populist sensation and won the election going away.
What Brown and Sununu did in the Senate
After Brown won election in 2010, Democrats ended up using a reconciliation bill to skirt a filibuster and passed ObamaCare by a simple majority vote. So Brown’s promise to be the necessary blocking vote proved moot.
But as a senator, Brown did show some independence. In one instance, he sided with Democrats to thwart a GOP filibuster of a major jobs bill. Yet Brown did vote with Republicans 83% of the time, according to analysis done by the Washington Post. This included voting against the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brown broke with this party to endorse the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. He also ended up backing the sweeping Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in the wake of the Great Recession — one of just three Senate Republicans to do so.
Sununu’s Senate record is far longer. The Washington Post found that Sununu voted with his party 84% of the time, including consistent support for the war in Iraq. Overall, Sununu accumulated a conservative record in D.C. on fiscal and social issues, albeit with some wrinkles.
In 2005, he was among a handful of Senate Republicans to oppose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. He also opposed the creation of Medicare Part D, on the grounds that the prescription drug benefit cost too much. Sununu also played a lead role in extending a ban on taxes on the Internet. And he was a lead sponsor of a failed plan to allow partial privatization of Social Security — something he doesn’t talk about much these days.
Sununu also regularly broke with his party on civil liberties issues. He fought the REAL ID act, which created national standards for drivers licenses. He also opposed aspects of the USA Patriot Act during that law’s 2005 reauthorization. Overall, his Senate record was that of a conservative — but one willing to buck his party on some civil liberty issues.
How Sununu and Brown lost their Senate seats
The Iraq war and the cratering popularity of then-President George W. Bush hurt Sununu when he faced Shaheen in their rematch in 2008. When Sununu beat Shaheen in 2002, it was a good year for Republicans, and when Shaheen beat Sununu in 2008, it was a good year for Democrats.
Brown’s 2012 loss to Elizabeth Warren is probably best seen as a return to the political mean in Massachusetts. Warren, then a rising figure in her party, beat Brown by 7 points. But Brown managed to outperform the Republican candidate at the top of the ticket in Massachusetts that year: former Gov. Mitt Romney, who was the Republican candidate for president. Romney lost to Barack Obama by 13 points.
What does this history mean for today?
Both Sununu and Brown are pointing to their time in the Senate as qualifying them to return. But in the political age of Donald Trump — when GOP norms on policy and much else have become more plastic — it’s hard to say whether voters see much relevance in policy debates from more than a decade ago.
The big issue in many primaries these days is which candidate has Trump’s backing. In this instance, it’s John Sununu. But their pasts are a way to understand where they’ve come from, and what they might be willing to do to get back there.
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