Republican former Sen. Scott Brown has jumped into the Senate race in New Hampshire, seeking to replace retiring Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Shaheen, 78, in the Senate since 2009, opted against running for a fourth six-year term next year. The election for the seat will be held on Nov. 3, 2026.
Brown previously served as a U.S. senator representing Massachusetts from 2010 to 2013, having won a special election to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who had died of brain cancer. Brown lost his reelection bid in 2012 to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.
Brown then moved to New Hampshire, where he challenged Shaheen in 2014 and lost the Senate election by about 3 points.
Brown, 65, has had a long career in New England politics. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representative from 1999 to 2004 and as a member of the Massachusetts state Senate from 2004 to 2010.
Brown retired from the Army in 2014 as a colonel after 35 years of service, including having served as a part of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
He was an ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa during the first Trump administration. Most recently, he has chaired a lobbying group and served as dean of New England Law School in Boston.
If he wins the GOP nomination, Brown will likely square off against Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H. Pappas has been endorsed by New Hampshire’s other senator, Democrat Maggie Hassan.
Pappas is relatively young for senatorial politics at 45 years of age, but is a political veteran in the Granite State. He served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 2002 to 2006. He also served as treasurer of Hillsborough County, the state’s seventh-most populous county. He also was a member of the New Hampshire Executive Council, a government panel that can veto certain actions of the governor.
Brown struck a sober tone in his announcement video.
“Like a lot of you, I’m worried about where the country is headed,” the former senator said in his announcement.
Of his Democrat opponent, Brown said, “For four years, Chris Pappas has stood by [then-President] Joe Biden as he opened the border, drove up the cost of everything, and made life just simply unaffordable.”
Brown praised Biden’s successor. President Donald Trump “sealed the border, he stood up to China, and he restored our standing in the world,” the Senate hopeful said.
Pappas in a statement sought to connect Brown to corporate interests.
“While Scott Brown looks for yet another opportunity to do Wall Street’s bidding and blindly support President Trump and his agenda, I’ll always put New Hampshire first,” the Democrat explained.