Down Big, Brown Allies Go Epstein On Sununu In 2026 New Hampshire U.S. Senate Race

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

The super PAC supporting Scott Brown’s U.S. Senate campaign hit his GOP primary opponent, John E. Sununu, with a mailer attempting to link him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The $130,000 mail campaign targeting potential GOP primary voters hit mailboxes the day after a new St. Anselm College Survey Center poll found Brown losing to Sununu in the GOP primary by 21 points, 49-28 percent.

The mailer was paid for by the “Strong As Granite” PAC, created to support Brown’s Senate campaign, and is listed as an independent expenditure.

A representative of the PAC did not respond to requests for comment from NHJournal.

Approximately 3.5 million pages of the so-called “Epstein files” have been released so far. The mailer includes a screen capture of one email from 2010 between Epstein and Boris Nikolic, a physician and former adviser to Bill Gates, that contains the phrase, “John Sununu has good stories.”

Since the email became public, the question has been whether the “John Sununu” in the email is the former U.S. senator John E., or his father, former New Hampshire Gov. and avuncular cable TV host John H.

Which may be why the mailer is careful never to say that Brown’s opponent is referenced in the Epstein files, instead asking, “Why would a Sununu show up in the files…?”

There is no evidence that either Sununu ever met or communicated with Epstein.

While some politicians in both parties have made political hay from the Epstein issue, Republicans who spoke to NHJournal believe this is a bad look for Brown.

“It’s desperate and crazy,” said GOP consultant Matthew Bartlett.

“Crazy is one thing. Desperate is another. But when you have both in politics, it shows you are losing.”

The mailer also rehashes an attack from the 2002 U.S. Senate GOP primary between Sununu and incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Smith.

Smith’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, attacked Sununu over a fundraiser hosted by a Republican attorney who represented the group Holy Land Foundation in a civil suit. The group was shut down for its ties to the Hamas terror organization.

Lewandowski’s strategy didn’t work. Sununu defeated the incumbent Republican by eight points before going on to defeat Jeanne Shaheen.

Asked about the mailer, Brown told NHJournal he had nothing to do with it or the PAC’s strategy.

“I’m sure there are going to be pro-Scott and pro-John, etc. ads throughout the entire campaign. I’m just going to continue to work and do the things we’ve been doing since I entered this race. Nothing has changed. We’re going to continue to earn every vote by meeting people three or four times.”

Not good enough, says GOP communications professional Patrick Hynes.

“Scott Brown needs to denounce these false attacks against John Sununu. The backlash against this will seriously damage Scott Brown’s reputation,” said Hynes, who’s also a columnist for the Union Leader.

“If he won’t denounce it, he should withdraw from the race.”

Then there’s the question of strategy. The filing deadline in the race doesn’t even open until June 3, and the primary is another three months after that. How much impact will a single mailer have in March, unless the message is amplified with campaign spending in the future?

“This is lighting money on fire,” one GOP campaign pro told NHJournal. “This is a super PAC consultant getting paid today because he’s not sure Scott (Brown) will still be in the race in August.”

Polling, including the latest from SACSC, has consistently shown Sununu is the more competitive candidate in a general election against U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas. In the new poll, Brown trails Pappas by nine points (47-38 percent), while Sununu is within the margin of error at 46-43 percent.

Asked about the mailer, Sununu spokesman Mike Schrimpf said, “Scott Brown is losing the primary by over twenty points and continues to lose endorsements. Perhaps lies and smears are how they do politics in Massachusetts, but in New Hampshire people prefer the truth.”

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.