Candidate Spotlight: Chris Pappas
Democrat Chris Pappas, a candidate for the U.S. Senate for the New Hampshire seat being vacated by Sen. Jean Shaheen, has had an impressive political career thus far.
He has kept to a moderate path on many issues, but his voting record on legislation supported by the Stand Up for Workers PAC and his near-100% rating by the AFL-CIO, along with his strong odds of success in the upcoming elections, make him an attractive candidate for the PAC.
The young Harvard College graduate was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2002 at 22, the youngest person elected to that body, serving two terms before winning election as Hillsborough County treasurer, as which he served until 2010. He was elected to the New Hampshire Executive Council in 2012. He won re-election in 2014 and 2016, was first elected to Congress in 2019, and re-elected three times since. And, he is also the first openly gay representative elected by New Hampshire.
Before entering politics, Pappas helped manage a family-owned Manchester restaurant called the Puritan Backroom, a popular visiting spot for presidential candidates campaigning in the early-primary state. (His grandfather also invented chicken tenders at the Puritan in 1974.) He and his husband live in Manchester, the state’s largest city.
Pappas represents New Hampshire’s First District, which covers principally the eastern half of the state, but which doesn’t include many of the communities which line the state’s southern border with Massachusetts, where many liberal leaning tax refugees from that state are thought to live. Perhaps in part due to the fairly rural demographics of his district, Pappas has been careful to pursue a moderate course during his time thus far in the House. He was ranked the most bi-partisan Democrat in the House in 2023 by the Lugar Center. He has, unsurprisingly, a strong record on supporting gay rights, and actively advocated for restoring federal subsidies to make health insurance premiums affordable for many Americans, including many workers not receiving employment-related health insurance.
Most significantly for the PAC, Pappas has a 99% lifetime rating from the AFL- CIO. He has voted for, among other bills, Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, and the Raise the Wage Act. Pappas has drawn arguably the greatest criticism for his support of the Laken Riley Act. This act, which arose from the killing in Georgia of a woman named Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant, requires that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agency detain certain non-citizen aliens without bail during their immigration proceedings. This detention requirement applies to any individual who “… is charged with, is arrested for, is convicted of, admits having committed, or admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of any burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer … or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person.”
These requirements apply irrespective of whether there was any process, such as investigation or trial, involved. Many national civil rights organizations opposed the bill, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP Legal Defense, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Recently, Pappas has called for Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to resign or to be impeached. He has stated that ICE is “out of control, violating due process, the public trust, and standards of law enforcement.” On January 22, 2026, two days before Alex Pretti was murdered in Minneapolis, he introduced a bill that would redirect almost $75 billion in federal funding away from ICE and to local law enforcement, supporting the hiring of 200,000 more law enforcement officers. Pappas is well ahead of all comers in fundraising in the Senate race, having raised $4,284,014 and holding $2,612,761 on hand. This compares with $33,218 raised and $18,329 on hand for his sole Democratic competitor in the September 8 primary, Karishma Manzur; and $968,538 raised and $802,763 on hand for the Republican Scott Brown. (These numbers are as of end of September 2025. Numbers were not available for the second Republican, John E. Sununu, who served in the U.S. Senate from 2003 to 2009.)
Pappas’ only primary challenger, Karishma Manzur, describes herself as a doctoral degree holding medical science researcher, science writer and community volunteer, who also sits on the New Hampshire Democratic Party Rules Committee. She has included her support for workers’ rights prominently in her campaign materials, and she has called for the abolition of ICE following the killing of two demonstrators by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
The most recent polling, by Granite State Polling, from January 19, 2026, which tested Pappas against Brown, showed Pappas with a ten-point lead, 52% to Brown’s 42%. Pappas led also in the other pairing against Sununu on the same date, whom he bested by 50% to 45%. Other polling, from December 2025, shows Pappas ahead of these two competing candidates by slightly narrower, but comparable, margins. Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump in both of New Hampshire’s congressional districts in 2024. The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections both rate New Hampshire as “leaning Democratic” coming up to the fall elections.
Assuming he succeeds in the Democratic primary on September 8th, Pappas will be vying in the general against either carpetbagger Scott Brown, former Senator from Massachusetts and ambassador to New Zealand in Trump’s first term; or John Sununu, son of a successful former governor and himself a prior holder of a New Hampshire Senate seat. Brown’s populist positions, including one of the key votes that ended the United States ban on assault weapons, earned him the opprobrium of many Massachusetts progressives. His affecting of a barn coat and pickup truck, though, won him support from the (admittedly small) right leaning constituencies in Massachusetts, and will likely sell well to the more rural New Hampshire electorate. But, there is also ample anti-Massachusetts sentiment in the state to cost Brown votes.
Sununu may represent a more serious challenge to Pappas, with his strong name recognition and long family history of public service to the state as well as his prior holding of a Senate seat. In addition, Trump recently endorsed Sununu’s candidacy. Sununu’s fundraising success thus far, though, has not been demonstrated, and his campaign also appears to have generated limited buzz.
Pappas is regarded by commentators as the front-runner for the seat. Given his strong record of favoring workers’ rights, the retrograde views of his Trump-leaning opponent Brown (and the historically solid Republican Sununu), and given the importance of winning control of the Senate for Democrats, our PAC may decide to support his candidacy.
Interested in supporting the PAC as we prepare for the upcoming election cycle? Learn more and donate here.
Written by Paul Merry, SU4W Board Member
