Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is the latest Senate Democrat to announce her retirement, choosing not to run for re-election in the 2026 midterms, according to a report.
The Wednesday announcement by the former governor and three-term senator from a key New England swing state will add to the challenges facing Democrats as they strive to regain Senate control from Republicans in next year’s elections, Fox News reported.
“I ran for public office to make a difference for the people of New Hampshire,” Shaheen said. “That purpose has never and will never change. But today, after careful consideration, I am announcing that I have made the difficult decision not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2026.”
There was intense speculation regarding whether Shaheen, who first won election to the Senate in 2008 and who this year became the first woman in history to hold one of the top two positions on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will seek another term in office.
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Shaheen raised a paltry $170,000 in the final fundraising quarter of 2024, which sparked buzz that the senator might not be preparing for another re-election campaign. But sources in Shaheen’s political orbit noted that the senator did not emphasize fundraising in the fourth quarter of last year, which included the final month of the 2024 presidential election.
Fox News confirmed that Shaheen had a major fundraiser scheduled for March 20 in Manchester, New Hampshire. There’s no word yet on whether that event has been canceled, the network reported.
National Republicans see opportunities to flip the Senate seat in New Hampshire from blue to red, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had already run ads targeting Shaheen over her defense of USAID funding that the Trump administration is eliminating.
Scott Brown, the former GOP senator from Massachusetts who later narrowly lost to Shaheen in New Hampshire in the 2014 election, is said to be considering another run for her seat, Fox reported.
Last November, Republicans flipped four Democrat-held Senate seats to regain control of the chamber, and they are now aiming to further expand their majority in 2026.
In addition to New Hampshire, the GOP is targeting key battlegrounds such as Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he would not seek re-election. Georgia is also on their radar, with first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff viewed as vulnerable in another crucial swing state.
Furthermore, Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota announced last month that she would not run for another term in the midterms, fueling GOP hopes of making the blue-leaning state more competitive.
Meanwhile, Democrats are planning to go on the offense against GOP-held seats in Maine, where Susan Collins is up for reelection, and North Carolina, where Thom Tillis is vying for another six-year term.
Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said he is also considering running for Senate after previously rejecting the possibility.
“I have not ruled it out completely, but folks in Washington have asked me to think about it and to consider it, and that is just kind of where I am,” Sununu said Tuesday about a possible Senate run, according to The Washington Times.
Sununu left the governor’s mansion in January 2025 enjoying high approval ratings. Although he often bucked Trump during his governorship, he ultimately voted for Trump in the 2024 general election, having thrown his support behind moderate GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley.
Sununu has previously stated that he has no interest in representing his state in Washington.
“I would rule myself completely out of a U.S. Senate race, to be sure,” Sununu said last year, according to a local news outlet. “Politically, we’ll see what happens down the road. But in terms of Senate or Congress, nothing I have any interest in whatsoever.