Top Senate PAC Pledges $17M To Sununu's Race Vs. Pappas

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

The Senate Leadership Fund announced Monday it is committing $17 million to help flip New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate seat from blue to red, part of a nearly $350 million spend to keep the chamber in Republican hands.

“Our job is to preserve the majority,” Alex Latcham, the SLF’s executive director, told The New York Times.

Democrats need to pick up four seats to take control of the Senate and return Sen. Chuck Schumer to the top job. With President Donald Trump’s poll numbers sagging, some political professionals see a path to a Democratic majority in November. That path goes through Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio (with a possible detour in either Iowa or Texas).

But that path closes if Democrats lose a seat, and Republicans are investing in three potential pick-up states of their own: Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire.

While the U.S. Senate primary isn’t until September (the filing period doesn’t even open for another two months), and two former U.S. senators are in the running — Scott Brown and John Sununu– the SLF has made its choice.

“John Sununu has a proven record of creating jobs, strengthening national security, and fighting for working families,” Latchman said in a statement. “Meanwhile, Chris Pappas has failed to represent Granite State values and is beholden to a radical liberal agenda. Senate Leadership Fund is proud to support John Sununu, help defeat Far-Left Chris Pappas, and ensure New Hampshire has an effective voice in Washington, D.C.”

Sununu has also been endorsed by President Donald Trump and Americans for Prosperity, who released a new ad promoting his candidacy on Monday.

“John E. Sununu has shown that he alone can put this seat in the Republican column. This signals that national Republicans are serious about flipping New Hampshire from blue to red. Republicans see a real pickup opportunity in New Hampshire and they’re making a strong play here,” said GOP strategist Jeff Grappone.

Brown has repeatedly said he is not dropping out of the race.

According to a statement, “SLF’s $17 million commitment to New Hampshire is part of an unprecedented $342 million nationwide effort to invest early in key Senate battleground states. SLF will efficiently deploy resources and build full-scale campaigns to protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority.”

Expanding the majority currently appears to be a long shot, with polls showing Democrats leading in Maine and North Carolina and close races in Alaska and Hawaii.

At the same time, Sununu is in a margin-of-error race with Pappas in a state that is reliably blue at the federal level. And while Trump’s polling may be weak, CNN’s Harry Enten noted Monday that Democrats’ polls are disastrous.

In 2006, Democrats had a net favorability of 18 points higher than Republicans. In 2018, it was 12 points. Currently, Democrats are trailing Republicans by five points.

“Democrats are just, simply put, running behind their previous benchmarks. And they need to be running well ahead of them if they want to take back the United States Senate, given that math,” Enten said.

RNC Spokesperson Kristen Cianci called the numbers “a five-alarm fire for Chris Pappas and the Democrats, who are out of touch with Granite Staters, underwater with their own base, and too focused on obstructing President Trump to do anything about it.”

On Sunday, the Pappas campaign posted to “stay tuned for a big announcement the following day.”

What was the big news?

The congressman has started a Substack called “The Scoop.”

“Long before I served in Congress – or even thought about running for office – I spent long hours in the kitchen at my family’s restaurant in Manchester making ice cream,” Pappas posted. “I wrote about that experience and how it applies to public service.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.