Jeanne Shaheen’s retirement has created a rare open-seat contest in a closely divided state. Early surveys favor Chris Pappas, while Republicans are betting a competitive nominee and New Hampshire’s independent voters can narrow the race.
Republicans are seeking to flip a New Hampshire Senate seat in the 2026 midterm elections, but a poll released this week shows Democratic Representative Chris Pappas leading potential Republican rivals. The seat is opening because Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen is retiring at the end of her term, and the early numbers point to a difficult, not impossible, Republican path.
The newest St. Anselm College survey puts Pappas ahead of former Senator John Sununu, 48% to 41%, and ahead of former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, 49% to 37%. Other polls have produced tighter Pappas-Sununu matchups, including results in the 47% range for Pappas, underscoring why this New Hampshire Senate seat poll is an early snapshot rather than a verdict.
An open seat changes the map
Shaheen’s retirement removes the built-in advantages that come with an incumbent seeking another term. Open Senate races can attract more money, more national attention and more competition because neither party has a sitting senator on the ballot to defend a personal record.
For Republicans, that makes New Hampshire one of the more plausible Democratic-held seats to target in 2026. The state has elected Republicans statewide, including Gov. Kelly Ayotte, even as Democrats have generally performed well in recent federal elections.
Democrats, meanwhile, see Pappas as a candidate with a record of winning in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, the state’s more competitive House seat. He has represented the district since 2019 and is widely viewed as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Pappas has the early edge
The St. Anselm College poll, conducted August 17-18 among 1,411 likely voters, found Pappas leading Sununu by seven points and Brown by 12. Its stated margin of error was plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
The survey also found Sununu ahead of Brown in the Republican primary, 54% to 24%. On the Democratic side, Pappas led progressive candidate Karishma Manzur, 59% to 28%.
Those figures suggest Pappas currently enters a general election with more consolidated support than either prospective GOP contender. They do not settle how the race will look after a primary, when nominees become better known and campaigns begin spending heavily on defining one another.
Sununu looks like the closer test
The polling points to a meaningful difference between the potential Republican nominees. Sununu, who held New Hampshire’s other Senate seat from 2003 to 2009, ran notably closer to Pappas than Brown did in the St. Anselm survey.
That pattern appears in other available polling. A University of New Hampshire survey conducted in June gave Pappas a 47% to 44% edge over Sununu, while an Emerson College poll conducted in March showed Pappas ahead 45% to 44%.
A Peak Insights poll sponsored by the National Republican Senatorial Committee found an even narrower Pappas lead over Sununu, 43% to 42%. That poll surveyed 500 likely voters in late June and carried a four-point margin of error.
The range is important. Pappas has led across the cited surveys, but several results indicate a one- to three-point contest against Sununu. That is the argument Republicans can make for treating New Hampshire as competitive rather than conceding it based on one larger Pappas advantage.
Independents could decide the race
New Hampshire’s electorate gives both parties reason to be cautious about drawing sweeping conclusions from party labels. As of August 3, the state had 351,815 voters registered as undeclared, compared with 299,976 Republicans and 247,069 Democrats, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Those voters are central to the state’s political identity. A nominee who can reach beyond a party base, especially on economic concerns and cost-of-living pressures, may have room to move the race after the primaries.
The presidential results illustrate New Hampshire’s mixed political signals. Kamala Harris carried the state in 2024, 50.7% to 47.9%, a margin of less than three points. Democrats have won federal contests there consistently in recent years, but statewide Republican victories have remained possible.
That split helps explain why Democrats can point to the federal voting trend while Republicans point to the state’s openness to GOP governors and its long record of close contests.
National headwinds meet local politics
Midterms often punish the party holding the White House, a historical pattern Democrats hope will work in their favor if voters are dissatisfied with President Donald Trump’s administration. Polling and voter sentiment can shift sharply before Election Day, particularly if economic conditions change.
Republicans have a different case: an open seat is easier to contest than one held by a well-established incumbent, and a familiar candidate could make the election a referendum on Pappas rather than a simple continuation of Shaheen’s tenure.
Outside handicappers currently lean Democratic. Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have rated the contest Lean Democratic, according to the reporting. Prediction-market odds have also favored Democrats, though those markets reflect traders’ current expectations, not a guaranteed outcome.
The race is early, not settled
The most defensible reading of the polling is that Democrats begin ahead, particularly with Pappas as their likely nominee. The St. Anselm results give him a clearer advantage over Brown and a more modest but still meaningful lead over Sununu.
Republicans’ prospects hinge heavily on their nominee, the ability to appeal to undeclared voters and whether the national environment worsens for Democrats or Republicans. A close Pappas-Sununu matchup in several surveys leaves room for a real contest; Pappas’s consistent leads leave Democrats with the stronger starting position.
For now, New Hampshire looks less like a sure Senate flip than a race where candidate selection could determine whether an open seat becomes a national battleground.
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