Sununu, Hassan, Pappas win re-election in NH

Jackie Weik

Outside the Memorial Union Building, Holloway Commons Entrance

Ashlyn Giroux, Staff Writer

In Tuesday’s midterm elections, high-profile New Hampshire incumbents Governor Chris Sununu (R-NH), Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Congressman Chris Pappas (D-NH) held onto their seats by significant margins over their opponents. 

With New Hampshire being one of the most competitive swing states in the country, their races were called late last night and earlier this morning by The Associated Press.

Sununu, who has been Governor since 2017 and is a firm centrist Republican, held on to a significant lead over challenger Dr. Tom Sherman (D-NH). So far, Sununu has gone untouched by former president Donald Trump and his followers, going so far as to refer to him as “f*cking crazy” earlier this year while Trump’s team attempted to find a far-right politician to challenge him.

Conservative newcomer politicians backed by Trump, like Gen-Z’er Karoline Leavitt (R-NH) and Don Bolduc (R-NH), did not do as well as they had hoped. 

Senator Hassan holds a nearly 10% lead over Bolduc as of this morning. Congressman Pappas holds just under an 8% lead over his opponent Leavitt.

New Hampshire’s second congressional district also went to incumbent Anne McLane Kuster (D-NH) with a significant lead over opponent Robert Burns (R-NH), with Kuster holding 57% of the vote and Burns at 43% as of this morning.

District 21 put Rebecca Perkins-Kwoka (D-NH) back in the State Senate in an uncontested race.

Strafford County remained left, with Democratic incumbents Cam Kenney, Marjorie Smith and Timothy Horrigan hanging onto their state representative positions. Newcomer Loren Selig (D-NH) also nabbed a spot amongst the state reps for Strafford County District 10.

In other high-profile swing-state races across the country, there have been no signs of a Republican “bloodbath”, as Trump claimed there would be in a Tweet on Tuesday night.

The “red wave” predicted by republicans is far out of sight, with issues such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade and election denial bringing forth favoritism for more moderate, bipartisan candidates.

Even Florida, where incumbent Governor Ron Desantis won by 20%, brought in the first Gen Z candidate to win a house seat. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a 25-year-old gun reform and social justice activist, will now be the youngest member of Congress. Leavitt would have also been one of the first members of Gen Z if elected.

In the most competitive senate races throughout the country, Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania have all swung blue. North Caroline and Ohio have swung red, with Wisconsin projected to also go red. Arizona is expected to go blue. Remaining competitive states like Georgia and Nevada will determine which party takes control of the Senate. 

Georgia is currently in a tossup in the tight race between incumbent Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Trump-backed former NFL player Herschel Walker (R-GA). If neither gets to 50% of the vote, a runoff election will occur on Tuesday, Dec. 6. 

Nevada’s race is also a tossup, with no predictions yet due to the state conducting a predominantly mail-in ballot election. Ballots sent in on Election Day have four days to arrive and be accounted for, which took three days for 90% to be reported for in 2020. There will likely not be any projected wins until Friday or Saturday.

The U.S. House of Representatives is projected to lean Republican, with Democrats currently at 172 seats and Republicans holding 197 seats.

Up-to-date live election coverage and results can be found on the New York Times’ homepage.