Representative Chris Pappas, a fourth-term New Hampshire Democrat, announced on Thursday that he would run for the Senate seat being vacated by the retirement of Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a fellow Democrat.
Mr. Pappas, 44, is the first major candidate to enter the 2026 race. He began his campaign with a video that shows him being driven around New Hampshire and that casts him as a fighter ready to take on President Trump and Republicans — a nod, perhaps, to Democrats’ recent backlash against concessions made by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader.
Voters, Mr. Pappas says in the video, “want someone who shows up, someone who listens and someone who isn’t afraid to take on the big fights — and, more importantly today, who knows how to win them.”
His comments also represented a not-very-subtle shot at congressional Republicans, most of whom have avoided holding public meetings with constituents to discuss and defend the Trump administration’s actions.
While New Hampshire elections are often close and a contest for an open Senate seat is likely to be an expensive and dogged affair, the race is not considered one of the most competitive in 2026. Democrats have held both of the state’s Senate seats since 2017. The party would need to flip four Republican-held seats in 2026 to take back control of the chamber.
Other politicians who have publicly expressed interest in running for the New Hampshire seat include Representative Maggie Goodlander, a first-term Democrat who is the state’s other member of Congress; former Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who served for eight years before declining to seek re-election last year; and Scott Brown, a Republican former Massachusetts senator who ran unsuccessfully for a New Hampshire Senate seat in 2014.
In his announcement video, Mr. Pappas faintly echoes some of the arguments long made by a next-door neighbor, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.
“People, regardless of their politics, have a sense that the system is not working, that there are special interests and big corporations that have outsized influence in our political system,” Mr. Pappas says. “Everywhere we go, we hear it: veterans, parents, small-business owners, people who have done everything right asking, ‘Why does it feel like the system’s rigged?’”
Such commentary explained a bit about the political moment Democrats find themselves in.
Having been swept out of power last year as voters again demanded change, Democratic candidates for office in 2026 and beyond are branding themselves as agents of the next round of changes. This time, they are entertaining discussions of systemic shake-ups that were politically untenable for President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign on last year.
Should Mr. Pappas win a promotion to the Senate, he would become the chamber’s first openly gay male senator. The only mention of this potential bit of history comes at the conclusion of the announcement video, which shows Mr. Pappas and his husband sitting on a couch holding hands.
