On Friday morning, New Hampshire Democratic Senate candidate Chris Pappas fired off a fundraising email to supporters with a two-word admission that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about where this race stands: "We're losing."
Not "we need your help." Not "the race is tightening." We're losing.
The 46-year-old four-term congressman is running to replace retiring Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and he's staring down a Republican opponent who already held that seat. Former U.S. Senator John Sununu — whose father served as New Hampshire's governor — isn't some first-time candidate learning the ropes. He's a guy who's already done the job, and voters in the Granite State know it.
The Gateway Pundit's Mike LaChance highlighted the growing Democratic panic over this race, noting that even the New York Times has started sounding the alarm. The Times reported that "two months before the midterms, Democrats are devoting vast financial resources to red states like Ohio, Iowa and Texas" while warning that "New Hampshire would like a word." The paper openly worried that the party could "let the seat slip from its grasp."
A recent University of New Hampshire poll confirmed the bad news for Pappas, showing him running narrowly behind Sununu. That's not where you want to be two months out when you're the one with the incumbency advantage of your party holding the seat.
Brandon Maly posted on X what a lot of political observers have been thinking: "The most underrated Senate race in the country is right here in New Hampshire." He's right. While the national media has been fixated on polarizing Democratic candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas, Pappas has been quietly bleeding out in a state Democrats absolutely cannot afford to lose if they have any hope of reclaiming the Senate.
The math here is brutal for Democrats. They're dumping money into states Trump won in 2024, trying to flip seats on hostile territory, while a seat they already hold — in a state with genuine swing tendencies — is drifting away from them. Pappas represents New Hampshire's swingy First District, which means he's supposed to be the kind of moderate who can hold statewide. Instead, he's sending Friday morning distress signals.
Sununu, meanwhile, doesn't need to introduce himself. He represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate before, and his family name carries weight across the state that no amount of Democratic ad spending can match. He's not running on promises about what he'd do in the Senate. He's running on a record of having already been there.
Democrats will argue this is just fundraising language — that every campaign says "we're losing" when the donation emails go out. And sure, the "sky is falling" pitch is standard operating procedure for both parties. But when the New York Times is independently confirming your internal panic, and the University of New Hampshire has you trailing, the fundraising email starts reading less like a tactic and more like a diagnosis.
The pattern is familiar by now. Democrats overextend into red states chasing long-shot pickups while neglecting the seats they already have. They did it in 2024. They're doing it again in 2026. Ohio, Iowa, Texas — those are lottery tickets. New Hampshire is rent money.
And Chris Pappas just told his own supporters the check might bounce.
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