Hours after Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced her retirement Wednesday, Rye, New Hampshire resident and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown sent out strong signals he would seek the Republican nomination for her open seat in 2026.
"I am looking seriously at it," Brown, 65, told Newsmax. Others close to Brown, who lost a tight (51.5%-48.2%) race against Shaheen in 2014, told Newsmax he has already made up his mind and will become a candidate soon — even if moderate Republican and popular former Gov. Chris Sununu decides to enter the race.
"Sununu has 'first dibs' on the race," former state Attorney General Tom Rath, a seasoned veteran of GOP presidential primaries, told Newsmax. "If he runs, he wins."
But others insisted that in a contested primary, Brown would almost certainly have the endorsement of President Donald Trump, in whose first term he served as ambassador to New Zealand. And in most Republican nomination battles, that is a major blessing.
Inevitably, Brown's former residence in Massachusetts and his elections to the state Legislature and then the Senate seat of the late Edward Kennedy in 2010 are held against him by opponents inside and outside the GOP.
Having won a nationally watched special election following Kennedy's death that foreshadowed his party's widespread wins in the 2010 midterm elections, Brown was unseated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren. He thereupon relocated to New Hampshire, where he had spent much of his childhood, and went on to make his celebrated race against Shaheen.
"The National Democratic Senatorial Committee came out with all-out attacks on me at the end," Brown recalled. "And because they were so occupied with defeating me, they weren't helping [Democratic nominees] in other states. So we picked up North Carolina, Alaska, and other [Senate races] in '14. I took one for the team."
After years of living in the state of his childhood and becoming a fixture at Republican events, Brown's ties to the state are not likely to be as big an issue in '26 as they were in '14.
Like Brown, four-term Rep. Chris Pappas, a Democrat, said he is "seriously considering" entering the race for Shaheen's seat. Privately, most state and national Democrats agree the Manchester-area lawmaker will take the plunge and run to become the first openly gay male senator in history. Pappas, 44, would almost certainly have financial backing from the LGBQT community nationwide.
"The driving issue in the general election will be Trump," Rath predicted. "He lost the state in '24 and is no more popular now than then."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.