Democrat Chris Pappas won New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race, the Associated Press declared at 8:20 p.m. EST Tuesday, Nov. 3, making the Manchester congressman the first out gay man ever elected to the Senate. “Tonight we celebrate, and as we celebrate let’s think about a brighter future we can all build together,” Pappas told a cheering crowd at the Puritan Backroom, his family’s restaurant, NHPR reported.
He beat Republican John E. Sununu, a former congressman and senator, and he’ll succeed Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a fellow Democrat who decided against running again. Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a lesbian, got there first in 2012, and her Senate biography calls her the “first openly gay member elected to the U.S. Senate.”
Sununu Concedes at McIntyre Ski Area Before the AP Call
Sununu didn’t wait for the AP. “This has been an incredible campaign, but it is not our night,” he told his supporters, according to The Boston Globe.
Sununu said he’d already phoned Pappas with congratulations, the Globe reported, and the Concord Monitor said he conceded at 8:15 p.m. before about 100 people at McIntyre Ski Area in Manchester. “New Hampshire is the greatest state in the greatest country in the history of the world,” Sununu said in his speech, NHPR reported.
Over at the Puritan Backroom, the Democratic crowd watched the concession play on a screen and started cheering and chanting, the Globe reported. “Today, you all did your part, we all did our part, to put our state and country on a better path,” Pappas told them, according to NHPR.
What Pappas Told Supporters at His Manchester Victory Party
From the stage, Pappas offered the win to voters in both parties and in neither. “Whether you’re a Republican, an independent, or a Democrat, tonight’s victory is for you, because this is a victory for team New Hampshire over the broken status quo that is hurting all of us just the same,” he said, according to the Monitor.
“Tonight, voters in New Hampshire and all across the country simply have had enough, and are demanding a change in direction,” Pappas said. “I’m ready to fight with everything I’ve got.”
Donna Keefe, one of the guests, has known Pappas since his high school days, when he’d play with her son, the Monitor reported. “We are definitely going in the wrong direction,” Keefe said of the country.
Pappas didn’t mention the milestone in his speech, and he rarely talked about being gay on the campaign trail, the Monitor reported. “No one should be discriminated against because of who they are or who they love,” his website says, AFP reported.
Chris Pappas Wins the Shaheen Seat Sununu Lost in 2008
Shaheen unseated Sununu in 2008 and went on to become the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Globe noted. “Chris Pappas talks about all the things he wants to do and wants to accomplish, but he’s been there for eight years and he hasn’t gotten the job done,” Sununu said at a debate last week, AP reported.
Had he won, Sununu would’ve come back after 18 years away, a record stretch for any senator making a comeback, according to the Globe. “This is not a moment to restore someone who was out of step with New Hampshire before and bring them back into power,” Pappas said, according to AP.
He tied Sununu to President Donald Trump, too. “This election is about Team New Hampshire versus Team Trump,” Pappas said.
Mike Bradley, a 77-year-old counselor from Bow, told AP his Pappas vote was almost more against something than for it. “The corruption, the homophobia, the transphobia, the endless war,” Bradley said of Republicans under Trump.
Marlene Friedrich, a retiree from Loudon, said she’s an independent but tilted Republican this year, and she backs Sununu’s positions “right down the line,” the Monitor reported. “He’s too liberal for my blood, I guess,” she said of Pappas.
Is Chris Pappas the First Out Gay Senator?
Not quite: he’s the first out gay man elected to the Senate, and Baldwin, elected Nov. 6, 2012, was the first out gay person. “In more than two centuries, not one out gay man has been elected to the United States Senate,” Evan Low, president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, said in an Oct. 28 statement.
Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema joined Baldwin after the 2018 election as the first out bisexual senator, The Hill reported at the time. Before the vote, Victory Fund board chair Joe Falk noted that the Senate had just one out LGBTQ+ member. “Chris Pappas can double that,” he said.
“That matters on every vote, from protecting our families to confirming judges who will uphold our rights,” Falk said.
The Human Rights Campaign, which endorsed Pappas, called the result a “historic win” and Pappas a “dedicated pro-equality champion,” AFP reported. “We’re ready to keep fighting for the rights of every Granite Stater alongside him,” HRC said. GLAAD congratulated him too, saying he’s “making history,” according to AFP.
From the Puritan Backroom’s Chicken Tenders to Capitol Hill
Pappas, 46, launched this Senate run in April 2025 at the Puritan Backroom, a longtime hangout for politicians of every stripe, NHPR reported. “They built this business right here, which is where I learned about hard work,” he said of his family that night.
His family came from Greece and opened the place in 1917, and, yes, it says it invented the chicken tender, according to AP and NHPR. “She set a high standard for public service, and inspired me at that young age,” Pappas said of Shaheen at the kickoff, according to NHPR, which noted he’d volunteered for her in 1996 as a high school student.
He held seats in the state Legislature and on the Executive Council before beating Republican Eddie Edwards for the 1st District House seat in 2018, a win that made him New Hampshire’s first out gay member of Congress, AP reported then. “A lifelong Manchester resident and small business owner,” reads the bio on his House website.
He co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, AFP reported, and his husband, attorney Vann Bentley, appeared in his Senate launch video, Gayety reported in October. “I am committed to fighting for the dignity and equality of all Americans,” his website says, according to AFP.
Pappas Starts Jan. 3, Stefany Shaheen Gets His House Seat
AP declared Democrat Stefany Shaheen, the retiring senator’s daughter and a former Portsmouth City Council member, the winner of Pappas’s House seat at 9:21 p.m. EST over Republican Anthony DiLorenzo, and Gayety’s live results hub is tracking the night’s other LGBTQ+ races and ballot measures.
The 20th Amendment ends congressional terms “at noon on the 3d day of January,” and it says “the terms of their successors shall then begin.” For Pappas and Stefany Shaheen, that’s Jan. 3, 2027.
