Sununu announces 2016 Senate bid to succeed Shaheen in New Hampshire

SPECIAL: Former Republican Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire wants his old job back.

And on Wednesday, Sununu took a big first step toward returning to Capitol Hill by announcing his candidacy in the 2026 race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New England’s only swing state.

In a campaign launch video first shared nationally with Fox News Digital, Sununu said these days “Congress seems loud, dysfunctional and even angry” and that he wants to “go back to the Senate to help calm the waters.”

Sununu is a former three-term representative who defeated then-Gov. shaheen in new hampshire 2002 Senate election. However, the senator lost to Shaheen in their rematch in 2008.

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Shaheen announced He said earlier this year that he would not seek re-election in next year’s midterm elections and that Republicans are trying to flip the seat as they aim to not only defend but also expand their Senate majority.

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

“Perhaps you’re surprised that I’m running for Senate again,” Sununu says to the camera in his video. “I’m a little surprised, too. Why would anyone subject themselves to what’s going on out there right now? Someone has to turn the temperature up and down. Someone has to get things done.”

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Sununu is a household name in New Hampshire politics. The former senator’s father, John H. Sununu, is a former governor who later served as chief of staff in the White House of President George H. W. Bush. And one of his younger brothers is former Gov. Chris Sununu, who won and was reelected to four two-year terms to lead the Granite State.

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

Former ambassador and former Sen. Scott Brown, who was elected to a three-year term in the Senate in neighboring Massachusetts and narrowly lost to Shaheen in his first reelection as the 2014 GOP Senate candidate in New Hampshire, joined the race in late June.

Former Senator Scott Brown, who launched the Republican Senate campaign in New Hampshire in June, is interviewed by Fox News Digital in Exeter, NH, on July 4, 2025 (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

“Our campaign will have the resources needed for the long term, allowing me to run my campaign the only way I know how: relentless hard work and a focus on the retail policies Granite State voters expect,” Brown said after Fox News first reported that he had raised roughly $1.2 million in donations over the past three months.

Brown has repeatedly targeted Sununu in the past month over the former senator’s past lack of support for President Donald Trump, who wields outsized influence over the GOP.

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

And Sununu, along with then-Gov. Chris Sununu has endorsed former ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the 2024 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary as she battles Trump for the nomination.

On the eve of the nation’s first presidential primary, the former senator wrote an opinion piece titled “Donald Trump is a loser” published in the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state’s largest daily newspaper.

Brown supported Trump ahead of his 2016 New Hampshire primary victory; that victory propelled him toward the GOP presidential nomination and ultimately the White House. Brown later served as the US ambassador to New Zealand during Trump’s first term.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), speaking at a policy event in Concord, New Hampshire, on October 22, 2024, is not seeking re-election next year. (Steven Senne/AP Photo)

“Anyone who thinks that a never-Trump corporate lobbyist who hasn’t won an election in a quarter-century is going to resonate with today’s GOP primary voters is living in a different universe. While John was supporting John Kasich in 2016, I was campaigning with Donald Trump,” Brown said on Fox News.

Pointing to Sununu’s last fifteen years in the private sector, Brown argued: “While John was fighting for special interests, I was serving in the first Trump administration. While John was courting the D.C. establishment this summer, I was working with grassroots activists across the Granite State. Senate seats are earned, not transferred.”

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Trump, whose support was extremely effective in the Republican primaries, has remained neutral so far.

But the president may be willing to ignore Sununu’s past barbs.

Earlier this year, when Chris Sununu flirted with running for the Senate after leaving office, Trump encouraged him to run.

The younger Sununu, Haley’s biggest supporter and surrogate in New Hampshire, has repeatedly criticized Trump during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.

Former Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (center) is joined by then-New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, right, as she visits a polling place to greet voters casting ballots in the state’s first presidential primary on Jan. 23, 2024, in Hampton, New Hampshire. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Trump told reporters in April that he had met with the former governor in the Oval Office and would “fully support him.”

“He’s been very good to me over the last year,” Trump added. “I hope he runs. I think he’ll win that seat.”

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A national Republican strategist familiar with the Senate race in New Hampshire also told Fox News Digital last month: “President Trump appreciates winners and understands that John E. Sununu put this race on the map for Republicans.”

As Fox News reported, Sununu met last month with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and former Sen. Cory Gardner, who serves as chairman of the Senate Leadership Fund, the top super PAC supporting Senate Republicans. National Republicans see Sununu as the strongest candidate to win back the seat in New Hampshire.

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

Four-term Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who launched his Senate campaign in early April, is a clear frontrunner for his party’s nomination.

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While New Hampshire is holding the nation’s first presidential primary in more than a century, the state’s primary election to be held next September is one of the last in the nation.

While Republicans have been successful in state elections (they control the governor and both houses of the state legislature), the GOP has not won a Senate election in New Hampshire since 2010.