Debra Smith arrived at a recent candidates forum hating John E. Sununu, the Republican nominee for Senate in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Here, she thought, was another career politician \u2014 a former congressman and one-term senator seeking to reclaim his seat nearly 20 years after he lost it, riding the coattails of his father and his brother, both former governors of the state.<\/p>\n
A funny thing happened, though, as Mr. Sununu took questions about health care, housing and transportation policy from Chamber of Commerce types as they picked at caprese sandwiches. Ms. Smith found herself impressed as Mr. Sununu wove facts and experience into his answers, lifting the energy of the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very substantial,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But before Mr. Sununu left the function room at the Atlantic Grill in Rye, N.H., Ms. Smith, an independent voter, told him she still couldn\u2019t vote for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of Trump, I can\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cI told him I can\u2019t take the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Sununu, 62, has turned his comeback Senate campaign into a test of a tricky premise: that in 2026, it is possible to be both a Republican and independent of President Trump. Selling this idea is critical for any hope of success in a purple state that has never really warmed to the president. And as he trails Representative Chris Pappas, a Democrat, in the polls, he\u2019s running out of time to convince the Debra Smiths of the world to buy it, particularly in a race that is considered critical to determining the balance of power in the Senate.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sununu, right, debating the Democratic nominee, Chris Pappas, last week in Manchester, N.H.Credit…Reba Saldanha\/Associated Press<\/p>\n
He is trying. He once wrote an opinion essay that carried the headline \u201cTrump is a loser.\u201d<\/a> He has insisted in a television ad that he has never even met the president. He rattles off a laundry list of their policy differences to anyone who will listen. And, perhaps more than any other Republican running for Senate right now, he has asked voters to do something that strains the American political imagination: Consider what happens after Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cIn two years, the president will leave office,\u201d he said on a debate stage last month. \u201cAnd my question is, where do we go next?\u201d<\/p>\n The unsaid part of his bet is that, deep down, voters want a political future that looks like the past.<\/p>\n A New Hampshire dynasty<\/p>\n New Hampshire Republicans have lost every race for the House and the Senate since the dawn of the Trump era, often by quite a lot, even as they have won office at the state level. But the party saw a ray of hope in the Sununu name, which is synonymous with the flinty, establishment Republicanism that used to be a lot more common in New England. Mr. Sununu\u2019s father, John H. Sununu, served as governor for three two-year terms in the 1980s before serving as chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush.<\/p>\n National Republicans had tried unsuccessfully to convince Chris Sununu, Mr. Sununu\u2019s charismatic younger brother and a former governor, to run for the Senate in 2022 against the incumbent Democrat, Maggie Hassan. By early 2025, they were seeking to lure John E. Sununu into the 2026 race. But when Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the longtime Democratic incumbent, announced she would retire, Chris Sununu coyly hinted<\/a> he might run for the Senate after all. A person familiar with the recruiting efforts said that national Republicans checked in to gauge how serious he was \u2014 nobody wanted two Sununus on the ballot, after all \u2014 but Chris ultimately demurred.<\/p>\n Signs in support of Mr. Sununu\u2019s campaign being set up recently in Hampton Falls, N.H.Credit…Sophie Park\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Today, the campaign signs dotting the state\u2019s landscape read, simply, \u201cSununu Senator,\u201d without specifying which one is actually running. Democrats have conducted private polling to see if voters know which family member is on the ballot. They say confusion abounds.<\/p>\n One reporter\u2019s text message meant for John E. Sununu recently made it, instead, to his father.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have reached the old ancient former Gov. of New Hampshire,\u201d came the reply, which concluded, \u201cnot the young dynamic Sen.\u201d<\/p>\n The current candidate says there is no confusion. \u201cVoters absolutely know who I am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Sununu first ran for Congress 30 years ago and held the seat currently occupied by Mr. Pappas for three terms. He won his Senate seat in 2002, in a strong year for Republicans in the wake of Sept. 11, and lost it to Ms. Shaheen in the wave that accompanied the election of Barack Obama in 2008. (He then pursued a lucrative career working at a lobbying firm and sitting on corporate boards.)<\/p>\n Mr. Sununu, campaigning for Congress in 1996, chats with his wife, Catherine, and former President George H.W. Bush in Rye, N.H.Credit…Marcia Curtis\/Associated Press<\/p>\n On the campaign trail, he tells war stories from another era. He can be trusted to stand up to Mr. Trump, he says, because he stood up to President George W. Bush, insisting that the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, include more protections for civil liberties. He can be trusted to be bipartisan, he says, because he cosponsored legislation with Hillary Clinton. He was the first Republican to call for the firing of Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general for Mr. Bush. (Mr. Gonzales resigned in 2007 after a standoff with congressional critics over the Justice Department\u2019s handling of terrorism investigations and the firing of U.S. attorneys.)<\/p>\n \u201cI think all of those things reinforce a reputation for independence and for directness and honesty,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n And did his family name help?<\/p>\n \u201cSure,\u201d he said, quickly changing the subject to how, in 2024, he endorsed former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for president over Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n Endorsed by the president<\/p>\n In February, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Sununu, saying he would work \u201ctirelessly to advance our America first agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n