New Hampshire voters cast primaries tonight that will decide who carries the state’s open Senate seat into the general election, with Donald Trump’s endorsement once again under the microscope in the Republican race.
The night puts Chris Pappas, the Democratic front-runner, on a path toward a general election campaign built around high costs and political corruption. It also offers an early read on whether Trump can still steer a Senate contest in New Hampshire after losing the state by 3 points in 2024.
Pappas first won a battleground seat in 2018 and entered this race with the kind of advantage that usually comes with name recognition and time in office. He has already launched an ad aimed at a potential Republican opponent, a sign that he is preparing as if the nomination is his to lose.
But the Democratic primary has not been a simple march. Karishma Manzur, a scientist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, pushed from the left with support for Medicare for All and a sharper attack on Pappas over his support and funding for Israel. She said he was enabling genocide, a line meant to turn the race into a fight over the party’s direction as much as the seat itself.
The Republican side has been no less familiar, even if the stakes are different. John Sununu and Scott Brown were the main contenders, with Sununu backed by Trump, John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Brown, who held a Massachusetts seat for three years and later ran for the New Hampshire Senate in 2014, brought his own record into a contest that has now become a test of whether the GOP can finally break a run of losses in the state.
That is the backdrop to tonight’s vote. New Hampshire has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 2010, and the race is unfolding in a state where Kelly Ayotte is already the Republican governor. With Jeanne Shaheen retiring, both parties see the seat as part of a broader fight for control of the chamber, and the result tonight will show whether the familiar names still have the best grip on a race that could shape the fall.
The clearest answer is likely to come quickly after the polls close: whether Trump’s backing still carries weight in New Hampshire, and whether Pappas enters the general election with momentum or with a challenge from his left still hanging over him.
