U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) recently sat down with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview following the official launch of his bid for New Hampshire’s open U.S. Senate seat, which is expected to be among the most closely watched contests of the 2026 midterm election cycle. 

The congressman, who is serving his fourth term as the representative for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, expects next year’s race will be “very high profile” and “challenging.” The New York Times, meanwhile, anticipates “an expensive and dogged affair.” 

Senate elections tend to attract a disproportionate share of attention and resources especially in recent years as control over the chamber has tended to change hands more often and with smaller margins, but Pappas’s race is expected to be a bellwether for Democrats as they work to mount a comeback after last year’s electoral defeat. 

At the same time, Pappas is gearing up for the battle over the Republican led reconciliation spending bill, with Democratic lawmakers exercising what little leverage they may have in the minority to fight against “disastrous cuts to Medicaid” while “finding other ways to protect what’s important to the people that we represent.” 

Lawmakers on Sunday night gave the go-ahead for the GOP’s tax and spending package, but negotiations continue into this week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) works to appease conservative hardliners and swing district Republicans. 

Granite Staters are “really concerned” about negotiations in Washington over spending, but also with the exigencies created by President Donald Trump over the past 100+ days of his second term, which have cropped up repeatedly during the town hall-style events in New Hampshire that Pappas has headlined over the spring. 

“That’s part of the reason why things are so challenging here in Washington,” the congressman said. “Oftentimes you’re pulled in 10 different directions on any given day based on what this administration is trying to do, based on what Republicans in Congress are trying to do.” 

“We’ve got to figure out how we can shed light on what’s happening, try to confront the damage, and use whatever tools we have to fight back,” he said, while remaining “focused on those things that matter most, whether that’s people losing their health insurance, cuts to programs like Social Security, and people’s access to their benefits.” 

The US Senate election

“I’ve got a strong foundation of support” for the Senate race, Pappas told the Blade, noting “I’ve run four campaigns for the House in half the state of New Hampshire” whose congressional map is cleaved into halves with the congressman’s constituents in the eastern portion of the state while freshman Democratic Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander represents the 2nd District. 

Following the announcement in March that New Hampshire’s senior U.S. senator, Jeanne Shaheen (D), would not be seeking reelection next year, “I spent the first couple weeks,” Pappas said, “talking directly with folks all across New Hampshire to see what was on their minds, and increasingly, I was hearing from people that they wanted me to jump into the race.” 

The sentiment was shared by Shaheen and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation — Goodlander and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) — who quickly endorsed Pappas’s bid. Speculation that the state’s popular former governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, might mount a formidable challenge for the seat ended with his announcement last month that he would not enter the race. 

Even if Pappas is on the glidepath for the Senate, which is difficult to handicap so far in advance of November 2026, the election is expected to draw substantial attention and resources. 

According to the Cook Political Report, of the Senate seats that will be up for grabs in the midterms, nine are held by incumbent Democrats and 19 by incumbent Republicans who are expected to easily win reelection, which leaves just five races whose outcomes are less certain and which therefore are likely to earn most of the attention and resources next year: The blue-leaning open seat in New Hampshire, an open seat in Michigan that is currently deemed a toss-up, the seat in Georgia held by incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, which is also considered a toss-up, and the red-leaning seats held by incumbent GOP U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

While the maps present long-shot odds of Democrats regaining control of the upper chamber even though Republicans had reclaimed the Senate majority last year by flipping just four seats for a modest margin of 53-47, races like Pappas’s are expected to be testing grounds for the minority party’s major campaigns midway through Trump’s second term. 

New Hampshire has long been a political battleground where elections tend to be close and voters tend to split the ticket. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, only three U.S. states are less politically partisan: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The determination is based on data collated from the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, where voters in both of the Granite State’s two congressional districts favored Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump while supporting the Republican gubernatorial nominees, Chris Sununu and Kelly Ayotte. 

Shaheen has “really built a brand that’s based on serving people and delivering for the constituents of New Hampshire,” Pappas said. “So that’s the kind of work that I want to carry on — but recognizing, in this time, that we really have to stand up and fight and be a part of our response to what this administration is doing.”

“We do need to re-establish some basic checks and balances here in Washington, so that there is oversight and accountability of an administration that’s blowing through all the guardrails and is really estranged from public opinion and from the Constitution,” he said, while continuing “to find ways to meet people where they are, to hear their stories, and to connect the fight here in Washington to people’s lives back home.” 

Responding to the needs of Granite Staters

Specifically, while “people are responding to a lot of different stories,” Pappas highlighted concerns about “cuts to specific programs, the fact that we’ve got 80,000 VA employees that are going to be fired,” and over the direction in which care for veterans is headed under the new administration. 

“The big fight right now is around health care,” he said. “It’s around defending Medicaid coverage, ensuring we’re going to continue to have a Medicaid expansion program in New Hampshire, which is something that I’ve worked with then-Gov. Maggie Hassan to implement, and whether we’re going to have tax fairness and prevent huge tax breaks from going to the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations.”

Asked about cuts to medical research that are impacting research universities across the country, Pappas said the issue has been raised often in discussions with people in his home state.

“The University of New Hampshire does a tremendous amount of research with federal funds,” he noted, “and that’s something that we’ve worked hard through the years to advocate for, and it’s really important for the university to continue to be able to do that work and help us understand the world around us, how it’s changing, and how we can respond to protect public health, for instance, to protect our communities against sea level rise — those are just important priorities.” 

Unlocking “breakthroughs in science and medicine” is important for America’s global competitiveness, the congressman added, whether by “homegrown talent here in the United States or research scientists from around the world that want to come to our country and share their expertise and help the United States move forward.”

“Donald Trump has decided that universities and colleges are a political enemy of his, and he’s trying to punish them, but in doing that, he’s really short changing our economy and the future of the United States,” Pappas said, adding, “most people recognize that, especially people in New Hampshire.” 

The congressman recounted how he was able to work closely with his colleagues in the state’s congressional delegation to leverage public pressure and influence by labor unions to reinstate probationary employees at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who were let go following drastic cuts to the federal workforce under the Trump-Vance administration. 

“It’s really critical to the future of that facility, which rehabilitates our nuclear submarine fleet and has nearly 7,000 civilian employees,” Pappas said. “So that was one case where we found that we were able to get a lot of local attention and support around an issue, and perhaps that news made it all the way back here to the Defense Department who were concerned about public pressure.”

“We’ve got a lot of long-time employees at that shipyard,” along with “a lot of new people that have been brought on board as a result of an expansion over the last several years,” the congressman noted. “Across the board, people want to know that we’re focused, especially on our families’ bottom line right now,” which is why it was important for him and his colleagues to “go to bat for a facility that’s really important to people’s livelihoods, but also to our overall economy” and for national security. 

Moving forward, Pappas said, they will continue pushing back against “efforts to attack the right to organize and collective bargaining,” because “unions at the shipyard have a great relationship with management, but that could be disrupted by political efforts from this administration to attack labor unions.” 

The economy and protecting personal freedoms

The congressman said that while “we need to try a little bit of everything to try to identify what is going to break through,” at the same time, “I do have the sense that the last election hinged on the economy, that every election really hinges on the economy, and those are the issues that are going to be, I think, most salient to folks next year.” 

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re making progress at addressing inequities in the economy and are lowering costs,” he said. “Right now, the top issues that I hear about in New Hampshire include the high cost of housing, the lack of affordability of child care, the fact that our health care system is still inaccessible, and far too expensive for most people to be able to get the care that they need.” 

“We’re not getting any of that from Republicans right now,” Pappas said, when it comes to the “work we have to do to level the playing field in our economy,” adding, “they talked a big game in the last campaign about lowering costs, but they’re taking no meaningful action to do it, and so we need to be thoughtful about a really forward-thinking agenda that can focus on how we allow people to get ahead and stand in this economy.” 

Asked about whether and to what extent Pappas will focus his messaging on the president’s tariffs, he noted “people are already responding,” especially in “a state like New Hampshire that has a longstanding close relationship with Canada.”

He continued, “88 percent of our small businesses import something. We have a lot of exporting businesses that rely on their markets overseas, including in places like Canada and China, and some of those markets are going away because of the tariffs that have been slapped on U.S. goods that we export.” 

Trump’s trade war “has generated so much instability in our economy, it’s really hard for our small businesses to navigate,” Pappas said, with these new “disruptions to supply chains and the threat of increased costs” following a “really tough 5-year period from inflation and workforce shortages to the pandemic that predated that.” 

“This is an issue that I think brings people together across party lines,” Pappas said. “Folks understand that we have trade agreements in place that have been negotiated [and] supported on a bipartisan basis, including” the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, “which was renegotiated during the first Trump administration.” 

The congressman continued, “it only makes sense to move forward in a way where we are focused on how we can make more things in the United States, but also recognize that we can’t make everything and we can’t go it alone, so we need to be working with close partners like Canada, and there’s no there’s no reason for this sort of trade war that only hurts our businesses and our ability to create jobs and have a thriving economy.”

“I also think, with respect to personal freedoms, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, we have to continue to take steps to re-establish Roe v. Wade as the law of the land and defend reproductive freedom,” Pappas said. 

“I’m the only candidate in this race right now, and I think regardless of who the Republican is, we’re going to be fighting for the Women’s Health Protection Act and to make sure that we’re re-establishing the precedent that Roe set for more than half a century, which is broadly supported in New Hampshire,” he said. 

LGBTQ issues

A co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Pappas is the first openly gay member of Congress to represent New Hampshire. If elected, he would be the third out LGBTQ U.S. senator behind U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Laphonza Butler, who served from 2023 to 2024.  

Trump, along with his Republican allies in Congress and appointees serving in his second administration, has undermined rights and protections for LGBTQ people on a variety of fronts, including by dismantling and defunding efforts to fight against HIV. Cuts to basic and clinical science research along with public health programs have been advanced by the president’s budget and the GOP lawmakers’ reconciliation package, as well as through the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Now in the minority, House Democrats “will not be in the room negotiating, as much as we would love to tell the majority exactly how we feel about all these items,” Pappas conceded. At the same time, “to get a budget put in place and appropriations bills passed, you’ll need 60 votes in the Senate, which means you need some sort of bipartisan consensus, at least in that body,” which “could potentially be a difference maker in defending some of these programs that folks care about, that the president has sought to eliminate.”

“Services for people with HIV, access to health care, vital research — those are things that Americans broadly support,” the congressman said. “We’re going to stand up against it, and where there’s harm to people and important priorities, I’ll certainly be speaking out, and I know that members of the Equality Caucus will be taking that very seriously.” 

“Many people in this administration,” Pappas said, “are not traditional Republicans and don’t support the same set of policies that we’ve seen even Republican presidents put in place,” like the PEPFAR initiative led by George W. Bush, “which has changed the trajectory of the treatment of HIV and AIDS around the world.” 

“Now, they are attacking that program and its ability to provide care for people in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world, and it’s been reported that individuals in Africa have died as a result of not getting the treatments that they were counting on through that program,” the congressman noted. 

He continued, “We really have a human responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of people who are susceptible to disease or who have been exposed to it, and the fact that this administration is breaking with that long bipartisan tradition of research, of humanitarianism, I think is incredibly cruel, and it’s not what the United States should stand for.” 

What has been especially frustrating, Pappas said, is the silence from Republicans in Congress including those who “have championed these programs for decades.” 

“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said, except that “people need to be paying attention and we need to do everything possible to speak out and fight back against it” because “we can’t see an interruption in terms of the progress that’s been made in fighting disease and developing new therapies.” 

Public health aside, when asked about how the Democratic Party should approach messaging on issues of transgender rights and gender identity, Pappas stressed that “Americans largely embrace equality” and people want others “to have the same rights and responsibilities.” 

The congressman raised the Equality Act as an example — a bill that would protect Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing to employment, which was reintroduced last month with a press conference headlined by Pappas and top Democrats from both chambers of Congress. 

Democrats should not shy away from advancing bills that advance “fairness and equality before the law,” he said, “especially at a time where we know that the LGBTQ community is being targeted by really cynical political attacks.”

“Where I come from, in New Hampshire, we’ve adopted protections for trans individuals in our state’s non discrimination statutes,” Pappas noted, “and so I think when you come from an environment like New Hampshire, you understand that people do respect their neighbors for their differences.” 

He continued, “We’re a live and let live state, and so I think it’s really consistent with who we are to be tolerant and embrace people of different identities and orientations. That’s who we are as Granite Staters. And I think people recognize that in order to have a future where everyone can live a full and productive life, you need to provide people with equality before the law.”

According to a statement from his personal office on Sunday, former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.

“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said.

Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”

“Cancer touches us all,” the former president posted on X Monday. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”

Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. pic.twitter.com/oSS1vGIiwU

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 19, 2025

After acknowledging during an interview on Tuesday that he is considering a bid for the White House in 2028, Pete Buttigieg stepped onto a stage in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a 45-minute town hall where he looked and sounded very much a candidate launching his presidential campaign.

The former U.S. Transportation Secretary warned that “we are being tested on nothing less” than the strength of America’s commitments to freedom and democracy over the next four years of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Rather than “hang back” while those in power “screw up,” he said now is the time to advance and articulate an agenda charting a new path forward for the country, including by restoring access to abortion and better addressing the challenges and meeting the needs of the nation’s veterans and with their families and communities.

As Democrats work to rebuild with an eye toward retaking control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, the party has wrestled with questions of whether and to what extent last year’s electoral defeat may have been attributable to the adoption of policy positions that were unpopular or out of step with views held by key parts of the electorate.

Buttigieg on Tuesday stressed the importance of identifying which parts of the platform should be revisited, the areas in which a greater diversity of viewpoints should be tolerated and welcomed into the Democratic coalition, and when to provide room for disagreement and debate. 

As an example, he took the matter of whether and in which circumstances athletes should be allowed to compete on sports teams that are consistent with their gender identity but inconsistent with their birth sex. 

“I think we do need to revisit some of the things that we have had to say policy-wise that haven’t kept up with the times as a party,” he said, adding, “Americans may have questions about how to make sure sports are safe and fair, which I get.” 

At the same time, “that doesn’t ever mean throwing vulnerable people under the bus,” Buttigieg said — and not just because that would be wrong, but also because it’s bad politics for Democrats. 

For example, “Americans understand that your gender identity shouldn’t affect whether you get to vote,” Buttigieg said, referencing policies passed by conservative lawmakers in Iowa and several other states that would render voters ineligible to cast their ballots in cases where there are discrepancies in the information listed on their official documents, records, and government-issued IDs. The rules are expected to disproportionately impact transgender people who are far likelier than their cisgender counterparts  to have updated the gender markers and names listed on their driver’s licenses, for example.

Buttigieg, a decorated U.S. Navy Reserve officer who was deployed to Afghanistan, also raised an example of unpopular anti-trans policymaking, the Trump-Vance administration’s ban on military service by trans soldiers: “Americans understand,” he said, “that if you are, for example, a soldier who is doing a good job, who is getting good ratings from commander who is contributing to the readiness of this mission, who is ready to put their life on the line, who happens to be transgender, you ought to be honored and not kicked out of the military.”

The line drew applause from attendees, who included a number of veterans including members and staff from VoteVets, the progressive advocacy group that organized the town hall.

Also in attendance on Tuesday were supporters who wore official merchandise from Buttigieg’s 2020 run, which began with his surprise first-place finish in the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses ahead of then-former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — a transformational moment for the openly gay former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who thereafter emerged as a rising star in his party and quickly become a formidable force in American politics on the national stage.

Many elected officials and other influential stakeholders within the Democratic Party now consider Buttigieg the strongest or one of the strongest of its communicators. His name has often been floated as a strong choice to lead the ticket as the Democratic presidential nominee.And he seems well positioned for a run in 2028. Even so, this far in advance of the election candidates are more circumspect about discussing their plans or their thinking about a bid for the White House so far in advance of the election.

However, Trump’s second administration and the new Congress led in both chambers by Republican loyalists seems to have prompted a number of other top Democrats to dispense with the coquettishness. A report in Politico notes that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo have recently either made overtures signaling they are considering a run or declined opportunities to deny it.