Out Rep.Chris Pappas Wins Primary In Key Senate Race~Will Make History For 1st Out Gay Senator
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Out Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) has secured his party’s nomination to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) after winning Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in New Hampshire.
Pappas took home 65% of the vote, defeating progressive challenger Karishma Manzur, a medical scientist and member of the Southern New Hampshire Democratic Socialists of America who received 32.7% of the vote, according to the Associated Press.
“Today New Hampshire’s voters have sent a clear message,” Pappas said Tuesday, according to the New York Times. “They’re fed up with what’s happening in our politics, and they’re ready for change.”
In November, Pappas will now face former Sen. John E. Sununu, who secured the Republican nomination in Tuesday’s primary. The race could help decide whether Democrats retake the Senate.
Sununu, whose father and brother have both served as Governor of New Hampshire, is running for a Senate seat he previously held from 2003 through 2008 before losing his bid for reelection to Shaheen. NBC News notes that Pappas, the first out gay person to represent New Hampshire in Congress, is favored to win in November. If he does, he will make history again as the first openly gay man to serve in the U.S. Senate.
However, according to the Times, a recent University of New Hampshire poll showed Pappas slightly behind Sununu in the general.
Still, Democrats are confident Pappas can win in New Hampshire, a state President Donald Trump, who endorsed Sununu in the primary, has never won. Lauren French, a spokesperson for Democratic super PAC, Senate Majority PAC, told NBC that Republican optimism in the state “feels like wish-casting.”
“We continue to put states that they didn’t even think were going to be competitive on the board,” French said.
Pappas and Sununu have already turned their focus to the general election, with both candidates launching ads attacking each other. In one ad, launched last month, Pappas criticized Sununu for giving “huge tax breaks to pharma companies” and siding “with the insurance industry” while serving in the House from 1997 to 2003.
“In Washington, I’m taking on this kind of corruption, refusing corporate PAC money and fighting to lower costs,” Pappas said in the ad.
Meanwhile, both parties are pouring money into New Hampshire’s general election showdown. According to the Times, Republicans’ Senate Leadership Fund has pledged to spend $17 million in the state, while Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC plans to spend $10.2 million on TV ads. Campaign finance records reportedly indicate that the Pappas campaign raised over $15 million by late August.
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