New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen will stop running in 2026, ending a long and bizarre political career and further complicating Democrats’ efforts to restore the Senate majority.
Her decision not to seek a fourth term will immediately spark a high-stakes match in a country with voters’ reputation. Last fall, New Hampshire voters supported former Vice President Kamala Harris’ election to Congress for the president and Democrats, but they also voted for Republican governor and expanded the Republican majority in the state legislature.
“It’s a difficult decision to make President Trump and what he’s doing now even harder,” Ms. Shahin, 78, said in an interview with The New York Times. She specifically criticized the president’s focus on political retribution, his severe cuts in the federal budget and his confrontation with Ukraine as it defends the Russian invasion.
She announced her decision in a video posted Wednesday morning.
Ms. Shahing, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the first woman elected to be governor of New Hampshire and the first woman in the country to serve as governor and U.S. senator. She noted in the interview that she would serve in the elected office for 30 years and spent 50 years politically.
“It’s important for New Hampshire and the country to maintain a new generation of leadership,” she said.
Among the former Republicans who are considering running for the Senate from New Hampshire next year is former Senator Scott Brown, who served for one term in Massachusetts and later moved to New Hampshire. He almost defeated Ms. Shahing in 2014 and continued to be the New Zealand ambassador during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Chris Sununu, the state’s popular former governor, has previously said he won’t run, but said in an interview with Washington Times this week that he didn’t rule it out completely.
In the Senate, Republicans have a 53-47 majority, Ms. Shaheen is the third Democrat, behind Michigan Sen. Gary Peters and Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith announced retirement plans, making the party’s path to a majority more difficult. Democrats have little chance of picking up and dropping off and now have to defend several open seats, although they want a more friendly political environment, as parties in power often have strong midterm elections.
Even before Ms. Shahin’s decision, Republicans have the opportunity to flip the New Hampshire Senate seat in 2026. The National Republican Senators Committee recently criticized her ad for her defense of the foreign aid program.
Ms. Shaheen was first elected to the Senate in 2008, playing a starring role in political life in New Hampshire for a few years after serving three terms as governor.
She was the county organizer of Jimmy Carter’s first presidential election, helping him from obscurity to the White House and showing the importance of her early presidential election in small states. Four years later, she served as Mr. Carter’s state director in New Hampshire as he tackled the main challenges of Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. In 1984, she held a presidential campaign for Gary Hart in the state, where she had a surprise victory with former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Ms. Shahin also helped restore the fate of a country that once overwhelmingly Republican.
Her election has been the first among New Hampshire Democrats since 1975. But even before that, her tenure as governor helped modernize the party’s electoral institutions and created a blueprint for a generation of moderately moderate New Hampshire Democrats who followed her as governor and Congress. In her first campaign for governor, she long described Republicans as big tax workers by committing to a commitment based on broad sales or income tax.
All of this experience gives her perspective on the current state of her party as it seeks a sharper response to Mr. Trump.
“I think people think they’re voting for people who can solve inflation, lower grocery prices, energy costs, housing,” she said. “They’re not getting anything.”
She said Democrats need to promote specific policies to improve Americans’ daily lives, including education and health care.
Ms. Shaheen’s low theater leadership brand is currently without bombing and swaggering, and perhaps won’t succeed in other corners of the country. Critics sometimes laugh at her as “Betty Crocker”, who never became a famous presence on the National Political Talk Show. But in New Hampshire, registered Republicans and undeclared voters outperform Democrats, her meaningless style and cautious, long-term politics won her elections far outweighed hers.
In the Senate, she mastered the art of patience and perseverance, such as working with Republican colleagues, taking a measure to promote energy efficiency for many years before seeing the law.
Judd Gregg, a Republican from the same state, described her style as a typical New Hampshire state. He said that although they often disagree with policy matters, he respects her serious attitude towards work and commitment to the country.
“New Hampshire loves people who do this job and do a good job and don’t seek a lot of praise on the national stage,” he said. “Most of our governors are not gorgeous.”
Ms. Shaheen has long been part of the New Hampshire political scene that it is difficult to remember some of her signature efforts at the time were controversial. As governor, she expanded her access to public kindergartens and made New Hampshire adoption pastor Martin Luther King Jr.
In Washington, she also participated in the Senate Armed Services, Small Business and Appropriations Committee, noting her recent work on infrastructure legislation and noting a program designed to help small businesses as a focus of their careers during the coronavirus pandemic. Both are bipartisan partnerships, and she says she learned strategies from New Hampshire’s “basically a partisan state” from the early days of politics.
She worked with Arizona Senator John McCain, who died in 2018, and planned to provide visas to Afghans who helped the U.S. military during his country’s war.
In Washington and New Hampshire, she has been working on reproductive rights issues. In 1997, she signed a 19th-century state law that made abortion a felony, which was the 2022 Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roev. Wade decades ago.
Ms. Shaheen has also been a booster for the New Hampshire’s “First International” presidential primary, the name has been attacked by the National Democrats, who argue that the country is not racially comparable to that of many parts of the country, and is not worthy of a place ahead of this line. In 2024, Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not officially participate in the New Hampshire competition, although his supporters launched a successful written campaign on his behalf.
For Ms. Shahing and other supporters of the New Hampshire nomination competition, the small size and engaged voters in the state make it a good stage for candidates to hone their message and listen directly to voters. She is optimistic about her staying power. She said the potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 is talking about a trip to the state.
As far as she is concerned, Ms. Shaheen is imagining her new life increasingly challenging. “It would be nice to have more time to get involved in other things,” she said.
