Chris Pappas to become the first openly gay member of the US Senate

Chris Pappas, a four-term Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, has won the Senate race in New Hampshire and will become the first openly gay man to serve in the upper chamber of the US Senate.

Pappas, 46, is known in the House as a centrist voice who has at times broken with his party. He focused his campaign on serving as a "bulwark" against the Trump administration, which is unpopular in New Hampshire. According to The Guardian, John Sununu officially conceded when only 20 percent of the vote had been counted.

At Pappas's election night event in Manchester, the room erupted with joy as screens showed Sununu's concession speech, and attendees chanted "Let's go Pappas!" Ahead of the election, the race had become a late source of anxiety for Democrats. Pappas had been battling Sununu, who was seeking the seat of the retiring Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Shaheen, whom Pappas will replace in New Hampshire, has demanded the release of imprisoned journalists in Azerbaijan as the lead Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In October 2025, she sent letters to Farid Mehralizada, Ulviyya Ali and Alasgar Mammadli, reaffirming her commitment to their release.

In his victory speech, Pappas said: "Tonight's results are a wake-up call for corporate special interests and billionaires who have been rigging the economy, for the cowards in Congress who have enabled healthcare cuts, tariffs and war, and for the incompetent president who can't even be bothered to care how people are being hurt."

With his husband Vann Bentley beside him, Pappas pledged to fight for reproductive freedom and against the creation of data centers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities. He said tens of millions of dollars had poured into New Hampshire from Donald Trump, Elon Musk and corporate special interests, along with attack ads and "outright lies": "But we beat them anyway, didn't we?"

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