Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire will not be re-electioned in 2026, ending a long and singular political career, further complicating the Democrats' efforts to regain a majority in the Senate.
Her decision not to seek a fourth term quickly sparks a high stakes race in states where voters are voted on whimsical. Last fall, voters in New Hampshire supported former vice president Kamala Harris for the president and elected Democrats to Congress, but they voted for Republican governor and expanded the majority of Republicans in the state legislature.
“It was a difficult decision, and the current environment in the country has made it even more difficult, because of President Trump and what he is doing now,” Shaheen, 78, told the New York Times. She specifically criticized the president's political retaliation, dramatic cuts to the federal budget, and his focus on his hostility towards Ukraine, defending himself from Russian invasion.
She announced her decision in a video released Wednesday morning.
Shaheen, a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the first woman to be elected governor of New Hampshire, and the first woman to serve as both the governor and the US Senate. In an interview, she said she spent 30 years in elections and 50 years in politics.
“It's important for New Hampshire and the country to demonstrate a new generation of leadership,” she said.
Among the Republicans, who are already considering running the Senate of New Hampshire Senator next year, are former Senator Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts for a period of time and later moved to New Hampshire. He came close in 2014 by beating Shaheen and became New Zealand's ambassador in Trump's first term.
Chris Sununu, a Republican and a popular former governor in the state, previously said he wouldn't run, but in an interview with the Washington Times this week he said he didn't rule it out completely.
In the Senate, where Republicans make up a 53-47 majority, Shaheen is a third-democrat after Senator Gary Peters of Michigan and Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota. Democrats have little opportunity to pick up and now have to defend some open sheets, but they usually expect a more friendly political environment, given that the powerful party has strong midterm elections.
Even before Shaheen's decision, Republicans saw the opportunity to overturn their New Hampshire Senate seats in 2026. The National Republican Senate Committee recently created an ad criticizing the defense of foreign aid programs.
Shaheen, who was first elected to the Senate in 2008 years after serving three terms as governor, has been a leading role in New Hampshire political life for decades.
She was the county organizer of Jimmy Carter's first presidential campaign, helping him chase him from obscurity to the White House, demonstrating the importance of her small state's early presidential elections. Four years later, she was Carter's state director in New Hampshire. In 1984, she ran Gary Hart's presidential campaign in the state, bringing a surprising victory over Walter Mondale's former vice president.
Shaheen is also believed to have helped revive the fate of the once overwhelmingly Republican Democrats.
Her election to the Senate was the first of the New Hampshire Democrats since 1975. But even before that, her tenure as governor helped modernize the party's election machinery and created a blueprint for a generation of moderate New Hampshire Democrats who followed her as governor. In her first run to governor, she neutralized the longstanding characterization of Republican Democrats as a massive taxer by robbing the state's pledge to broad sales or income taxes.
All of that experience has given her perspective on the current state of her party, as she searches for a more keen response to Trump.
“I think people were voting for people who deal with inflation, lower grocery prices, energy costs, housing,” she said. “They don't get anything of those.”
Democrats need to promote certain policies to improve the daily lives of Americans, including education and healthcare.
Shaheen's low-drama leadership brand probably didn't have any success in other corners of the country, either of the currently popular big bombs or sw awa. Critics sometimes describing her as “Betty Crocker,” but she never became a well-known figure in the national political talk shows. But in New Hampshire, where voters who are not declared registered Republicans outweigh Democrats, her nonsense style and careful long game politics won far more elections than she lost.
In the Senate, she mastered the art of perseverance and persistence, working with her Republican colleagues, for example, on measures that promoted energy efficiency over the years before it became law.
Former Sen. Judd Greg, a Republican from the same state, described her style as typically New Hampshire. They often opposed policy issues, but he said he has immense respect for her serious approach to work and her commitment to the nation.
“New Hampshire likes people who do well in their work and do well, and don't want a lot of praise on the national stage,” he said. “Most of our governors are not gorgeous.”
Shaheen has long been part of the New Hampshire political scene, and it is difficult to remember how controversial some of her signature efforts have been in the era. As governor, she expanded access to public kindergartens, taking New Hampshire into the final state and adopting the birthday of Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. as a state holiday.
Washington, which also serves on the Senate Armed Services, Small Businesses and Approximate Budget Committee, points to recent work on infrastructure law and programs that will support small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic as career highlights. Both are bipartisan partnerships, strategies learned from the early days of politics when New Hampshire was “essentially a one-party state.”
She died in a plan to work with Arizona Sen. John McCain, who passed away in 2018, to provide visas to Afghans who supported the US troops during the war in their country.
And in both Washington and New Hampshire, she has been working on the issue of reproductive rights. In 1997, she was told that the Supreme Court's 2022 decision was Roev. Decades before overturning Wade, he specifically signed the repeal of 19th-century state law that made abortion abortion a felony.
Shaheen was also a booster for New Hampshire's “first in the country” presidential primary. This is under attack by national Democrats who are less racially diverse than most of the nation. In 2024, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not formally participate in the New Hampshire Contest, but his supporters there ran a successful writing campaign on his behalf.
For Shaheen and other supporters of the New Hampshire nomination contest, the state's small size and enthusiastic voters are a good setting for candidates to hone their message and hear directly from voters. She remains optimistic about its persistence. Already, the potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2028 said he is talking about a trip to the state.
For her, Shaheen imagines a new life with a less difficult schedule. “I wish I had a little more time to engage in a few other things,” she said.
