Congressman Chris Pappas may be the top Democrat on New Hampshire's November ballot, but when he campaigned at Exeter Town Hall Saturday, he wasn’t the marquee speaker. He was a warm-up act.
“Governor Newsom showed us how to stand up and fight back, not with one hand tied behind our back, but trying to find every point of leverage that we have,” Pappas said as he introduced California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
When Newsom hit the stage to a blast of walk-on music, there was no doubt who the headliner was.
“We should have just ended the whole thing right there with Chris," Newsom told the cheering crowd. "That was one hell of a speech."
Politics is sometimes called the ultimate team sport. But in New Hampshire’s high-stakes U.S. Senate race between Pappas and former Sen. John Sununu, the “team” aspects of their respective campaigns are playing out in very different ways.
As the campaign reaches its crescendo, Pappas' willingness to play second fiddle to visiting national Democrats like Newsom is conspicuous. Sununu, meanwhile, is leaning into low-key, local stops — sometimes with no more than a handful of people in attendance — while a tide of outside spending buoys him with online and on-air advertising.
A parade of national Democrats
Pappas' recent schedule reads like a who's-who of ambitious national Democrats.
Saturday it was Newsom. Later this week, it will be former Vice President Kamala Harris at center stage. Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock campaigned with Pappas across southern New Hampshire earlier this month. And former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has already paid multiple visits to the state to give Pappas a hand.
“Congress ought to be working overtime, and that’s the kind of worker you have in Chris Pappas, which is why he ought to be going to the Senate," Buttigieg said at a Rochester rally last month.
The potential 2028 presidential ambitions of people like Buttigieg, Harris, Warnock and Newsom make stoking Pappas' prospects an exercise in mutual benefit. At a moment when President Trump’s popularity stands at a record low, flooding the state with his antagonists is one way to energize Democratic voters.
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Pappas’s campaign is also quick to point to its grassroots efforts. They say close to a half a million New Hampshire voters have either gotten a call or a door knock from a Pappas volunteer.
'Person to person' — and outside money
But as Pappas continues to lock arms with national Democrats at large public events, Sununu is looking to leverage a very different approach to positioning himself in this race’s stretch run: mostly solo campaigning in low-profile locations.
Last week, Sununu courted voters at a Manchester dry cleaners, a Seacoast Rotary Club meeting, and a largely empty airport terminal in the town of Swanzey.
There, Sununu shook a few hands, inquired about the runway's length and condition, and chatted up roughly half a dozen airport workers.
It remains to be seen if Sununu’s low-key approach to public campaigning can leverage what he’ll need to defeat Pappas in a political atmosphere where Republicans are on defense due to Trump and the economy. Sununu says he expects voters to judge him against Pappas and conclude he’s the candidate most focused on New Hampshire and how to serve it.
“He’s bringing in Gavin Newsom; I don’t know what that has to do with New Hampshire,” Sununu said in Swanzey. “New Hampshire is about town to town, person to person campaigning, visiting with small businesses and avoiding some of the crazy chaos and partisanship that’s prevented us from solving problems.”
But Sununu isn’t exactly flying solo when it comes to marshalling votes in the final days of this race.
In fact, his campaign’s success may ride on the millions of dollars partisan PACs and dark money groups are spending on TV, digital and print advertising to boost him and attack Pappas.
Greg Moore directs Americans for Prosperity in New Hampshire, one of a small army of right-leaning advocacy groups backing Sununu. He ticked through the various conservative groups mobilizing to sway voters.
“There is America PAC, which is Elon Musk’s PAC. There is Sentinel Action, which used to be Heritage Action,” Moore said. “There is Turning Point, and Ted Cruz’s Super PAC has people up here.”
In all, Moore says outside groups and the Republican National Committee have about 1,000 paid canvassers now working to stoke conservative turnout.
Back in Exeter, as the crowd for Pappas’s rally with Newsom spilled out of town hall, Peter Kelly, a Democrat from Hampton Falls, said turnout is the name of the game. He likes that Pappas and his procession of bold-faced names are working to boost it.
“They’ve got the crowd, and if Democrats want to win, Democrats need to show up and vote,” Kelly said. "It’s just about that simple. Everyone is talking about turning out the vote, that's the right message right now.”
As election day approaches, expect that very basic message — that turnout wins election — to only get louder.
