Chris Pappas Wins New Hampshire Senate Seat and Becomes First Openly Gay Man Elected to the Senate

Democratic Representative Chris Pappas won New Hampshire's open United States Senate seat on Tuesday, November 3, defeating Republican former Senator John E. Sununu, according to projections by the Associated Press, the Fox News Decision Desk and Decision Desk HQ. The win holds the seat for Democrats as the party fights to take control of the Senate, and Pappas will become the first openly gay man elected to the Senate.

Decision Desk HQ called the race at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Sununu spoke to supporters in Manchester shortly after 8:10 p.m. and conceded the race to Pappas, the Granite State News Collaborative reported. With about a fifth of the vote reported, the Fox News Decision Desk put Pappas at 60.6 percent and Sununu at 37.6 percent. Election night totals are unofficial until the state certifies them.

A seat that changed hands in 2008

Pappas, 46, has represented New Hampshire's 1st Congressional District in the House for four terms, since 2019. He will succeed Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is retiring after 18 years in the Senate. Shaheen won the seat in 2008 by defeating Sununu, who had held it from 2003 to 2009 and comes from one of the state's best known political families. President Donald Trump backed Sununu in the race.

Pappas grew up in Manchester and worked in his family's restaurant, the Puritan Backroom, before serving in the state House of Representatives, as Hillsborough County treasurer and on the New Hampshire Executive Council. He was first elected to Congress in 2018 and became the state's first openly gay member of Congress. He won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in the September primary and campaigned as a moderate.

Energy prices ran through the race

High energy prices were a central issue in the cold weather state. Pappas blamed President Trump and fellow Republicans for the war with Iran, which has disrupted oil shipments and pushed up gasoline and heating oil prices, Reuters reported. Sununu argued that producing more energy at home would bring prices down.

Republicans went into Tuesday holding the Senate 53 to 47, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the chamber. New Hampshire was a must hold seat for Democrats, and the Georgia hold by Senator Jon Ossoff earlier in the night kept another Republican target in Democratic hands. Control of the Senate was still undecided late on Tuesday as counting continued in other battleground states.