National
Republicans just scored a top-tier recruit to flip a blue state red in next year’s Senate elections.
Former U.S. Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has entered the field for the 2026 Senate race in New Hampshire. Sununu, a scion of perhaps the Granite State’s most beloved political dynasty, is attempting a historic comeback – claiming the seat he held almost twenty years ago. He is attempting to win the open seat currently held by three-term Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who is retiring.
New Hampshire is one of the most ancestrally Republican states in the country, although it leans blue today. The Granite State hasn’t backed a Republican presidential nominee since 2000. However, on varying statewide levels, the GOP has more success. New Hampshire has elected Republican governors every two years since 2016, with Sununu’s brother – Chris Sununu – having served from 2017 to January 2025 as the state’s executive. During his tenure, Sununu regularly polled as one of the most popular governors in the country.
That type of name recognition will be of invariable help to John Sununu in his Senate bid, as Governor Sununu was not only elected four times – his latter two terms by wide margins – but he was a vocal moderate in his party that hearkens to New England’s classically liberal profile. Governor Sununu was considered a possible primary opponent to Donald Trump (R-FL) in 2024, but ultimately did not run.
In terms of U.S. Senate races, New Hampshire had a storied history at electing Republicans almost exclusively to represent them in Washington. Democrats currently control both seats, but the GOP held the Class 2 seat from 1979 to 2009. Sununu was elected to the open seat by a narrow margin in 2002, but went down in the 2008 blue wave that swept Republicans out of office amidst Barack Obama’s (D-IL) national landslide.
The Class 3 Senate seat was held by the GOP from 1855 to 2017, with just two Democratic terms in between those years.
Sununu must first advance from a Republican Primary, which currently includes former Senator Scott Brown (R-NH). Brown is most known for his win in the 2010 Massachusetts Senate special election. His victory in the solidly-blue state just two years after it had backed Obama by a wide margin was seen as the greatest political upset in years.
Brown would then lose the 2012 general election to Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and later move to New Hampshire and run in the 2014 Senate race. He lost by a narrow margin, but is eyeing a comeback of his own.
On the Democratic side, the party has also landed a top recruit in Congressman Chris Pappas (D, NH-01). Pappas held the open seat in 2018 and has been re-elected three times. Pappas, a younger face in the Democratic Party, has represented the Manchester-based NH-01, the lesser blue of the two Granite State congressional districts.
The development comes as a welcome reprieve for the GOP who have since weathered two heavyweight Democratic recruits in Maine and North Carolina to challenge the GOP’s 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Regarding the national redistricting “arms race”, Ohio Republicans have scored an upper-hand, although the court-ordered redraw could have gone worse for Democrats.
This scenario is notable as it is one of the only mid-decade redistricting efforts this year to be a product of a court-order and a deadline date set from 2021. Ohio’s regularly-scheduled 2021 redraw did not receive the bipartisan support that is mandated by the state constitution. As a result, the Legislature-drawn map was set to be active for only four years.
Ohio’s bipartisan redistricting commission approved a new congressional map on Friday, bypassing the Republican-controlled State Legislature.
Republicans currently hold a 10-5 delegation to the U.S. House, with two solidly blue seats around Cleveland and Columbus, and three but-leaning, but competitive, seats around Cincinnati, Akron, and Toledo.
While the GOP was expected to seize the opportunity to give their party the highest floor possible for next year’s midterms, they went relatively easy on Democrats. The Lake Erie-based OH-09 – a seat that Donald Trump (R-FL) won by about seven points last year and is held by long-time Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D) – got even redder – a 54.5%-45.5% spread – but still competitive for 2026.
The Cincinnati-based OH-01, held by Congressman Greg Landsman (D), has also gotten redder. Landsman, who flipped the red seat in 2022, was re-elected last year by about ten points, while Trump lost this district by about seven. Now, the partisan breakdown is practically inverted – a roughly 54%-47% gap, according to The Ohio Capital Journal.
However, a Democratic-held swing seat got slightly bluer – the Akron-based OH-13, held by Congresswoman Emilia Sykes (D), who won the open seat in 2022 and was narrowly re-elected last year. This part of Ohio was once the bread and butter of the Democratic Party’s working-class base not only in Ohio, but nationally. Since then, these counties have raced to the right in the Trump Era. No Republican presidential nominee has carried Summit County (Akron) since Ronald Reagan (R-CA) was re-elected in 1984, and Trump’s margins since 2016 have been the best for the GOP since the 1980s.
The best-case scenario for the GOP under this new map is a 13R-2D spread, although a 12R-3D delegation might be more feasible.
Meanwhile, the Virginia Senate has approved an amendment that would allow Richmond to draw new congressional lines before next year. The amendment stipulates that the Old Dominion reserves that right if another state redraws their House map first before the end of the decade – a likelihood given the current rate.
In Nebraska, Governor Jim Pillen (R-NE) now says he is “open” to redistricting, but that the act was “off” his “radar” when he was first elected in 2022. The Nebraska State Legislature is unique in that it only has one chamber – unicameral – and is officially nonpartisan, but Republicans do have ideological control. NE-02, centered on Omaha, is one of the Great Plains’ most rapidly left-trending areas, and the open seat being vacated by the centrist Don Bacon (R, NE-02) makes for a likely Democratic pickup next year.
In Maryland, State Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-MD) says that the path his party is on is “unsustainable” and that the “risk of redrawing the congressional map in Maryland is too high.”
Maryland Democrats attempted a gerrymander in 2021, axing the one Republican-held seat in the Old Line State, only for a court to strike down the map and for MD-01 to stand. Governor Wes Moore (D-MD) has insisted that “one person [Ferguson] cannot stop a process” and that a “special session is not off the table.”
Kansas Republicans are hitting a snag in their redistricting plans as several GOP holdouts are being courted by leadership to change their mind. Their votes are necessary to force a special session to redraw the map and axe Democrats’ only seat from the Sunflower State.
Summit County makes up the bulk of OH-13; the new partisan spread benefits Democrats to a 52%-48% tune.
In terms of special elections, Republicans have another overperformance under their belt, albeit a slight one.
Last Tuesday saw the GOP retain a State House seat in Alabama. District 12, just north of Birmingham, had elected a Republican by an 85%-15% margin in 2022. Cindy Myrex (R) won the open seat 87.1%-12.9%, with about 2,200 ballots cast.
While something of an innocuous result, the special election marks one of just a handful of times that the GOP has overperformed in such elections since 2025. These types of elections, especially on the state level, are generally seen as the earliest harbingers of the ensuing midterm’s national political environment.
State
Voter registration statistics show a startling development in New York State, according to the latest data released on November 1.
Reports show that the GOP has enrolled 97,925 new voters since 2022 – a 3.3% increase across all but seven of the Empire State’s sixty-two counties. Their largest gains, interestingly, were in the Bronx – a 23% increase for the GOP to the tune of over 11,000 new voters.
Queens saw a 12.9% shift in favor of the GOP and Brooklyn saw an 8.79% shift, while Manhattan was the only borough that saw a net decline of enrollment for the GOP.
However, since last year, the GOP has lost enrollees in forty-two counties, including Manhattan and Brooklyn, but Queens and the Bronx still show a net increase.
Since 2022, Democrats, meanwhile, have lost a net 79,014 registered voters, with 28,478 coming from the Bronx alone.
Since last year, however, Democrats have lost a net 108,219 voters – a sharper decline than 2022 to 2025.
While both parties have seen a net loss in enrollment since last year, the GOP isn’t declining as badly as the Democrats are, while Independents seem to be getting the last laugh. There are now 307,622 more voters who have not signed on with one of the major parties compared to 2022.
Democrats remain healthily ahead of the GOP in terms of overall registration – about 6.4 million to the GOP’s 2.9 million.
Local
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) is urging residents to donate to local food pantries ahead of the holiday season.
“My administration continues to work at great lengths to help our communities, but what has always made Suffolk County so special is the willingness of our residents to help their neighbors in times of need,” said Romaine in a statement. “I encourage our residents to find a food pantry in their town by calling Suffolk’s 311 Call Center.”
The 311 Call Center will provide callers with a complete list of pantries accepting donations. Information can also be obtained at suffolkcountyny.gov.
