Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is one of the most successful Democrats in the history of her state, a former three-term governor and current three-term senator — and the first woman in any state to hold both jobs.
As the senator’s daughter, Stefany Shaheen, runs for Congress, though, her leading rival is trying to use the family name against her. An ad for Maura Sullivan, a former Marine running against the younger Shaheen in the state’s First District Democratic primary, says voters deserve a “fighter, not a fancy last name,” and accuses Shaheen of acting “entitled.”
The younger Shaheen pushed back in an interview with me this weekend: “I always knew I was going to have to earn every vote in my own right,” she said.
The polls: Sullivan’s attacks might be working. A recent poll from the University of New Hampshire showed her with a narrow lead over Shaheen, who held a double-digit lead over the rest of the crowded field when U.N.H. surveyed voters back in January.
The lay of the land: The race for the open seat is unfolding in a classic purple House district, and it might just be the last messy Democratic primary of a cycle full of them. There’s at least one progressive candidate,Carleigh Beriont, on the march as Shaheen and Sullivan slug it out, but the contest has come to be seen in part as a test of a cranky electorate’s patience with political dynasties.
A long history of family history
Historically speaking, New England has tended to like its political family trees. Think of the Adams family — as in John Adams — and the Lodges, a.k.a., Henry Cabot Lodge. Think of the Kennedys.
And it’s not just New England. Congress is chock-full of members related to former members, like Senator Darline Graham, who took the seat of her brother Lindsey Graham, after his death in July.
But nepo babies (and siblings, and cousins) don’t have a perfect record, especially this year. Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family scion, lost a bid for Congress in New York (a defeat that followed former Representative Joe Kennedy III’s loss to Senator Ed Markey in Massachusetts in 2020). In the governor’s primary in Maine, the Republican Jonathan Bush (yes, of those Bushes) and Democrat Angus King III, the son of Senator Angus King, both lost their respective contests. A third political descendant in the race, Hannah Pingree, who is the daughter of Representative Chellie Pingree, claimed the Democratic nomination.
But if 2026 has a throw-the-bums out vibe, it hasn’t dissuaded other candidates with distinguished political lineage from running this year, either. They include:
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John E. Sununu, 61, the former senator running for Senate, who is both the son and brother of former New Hampshire governors and is expected to cruise to victory over former Senator Scott Brown next Tuesday in the Republican primary.
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Representative Tom Kean, Jr., 57, a Republican, is running for re-election to his New Jersey House seat after an absence from Congress that he ascribed to depression. He featured his father, Gov. Tom Kean, in a new ad.
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Beau Bayh, 30, the son of former Indiana senator (and governor) Evan Bayh, is the Democratic nominee for secretary of state.
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Michael Alfonso, 26, the son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, is the Republican nominee for the solidly red congressional district in Wisconsin that Duffy once held.
‘I’ve been here my whole life’
I caught up with Stefany Shaheen this past weekend at a low-key fund-raiser in the gently sloping backyard of Alderman Jason Bonilla of Manchester.
Shaheen has tread carefully around her family ties in an anti-establishment year. Last fall, she sharply criticized the deal that her mother the senator helped negotiate to end the government shutdown, seizing on Democratic anger across the country.
Shaheen, who served one term as a city councilor in Portsmouth and was chair of the police commission there, has focused her race on health care, proclaiming support for Medicare for All. She told the crowd in Manchester that she was running because of her opposition to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — another person who, as it happens, had a parent in the Senate.
On Saturday, she emphasized her deep roots in the state — “I’ve been here my whole life,” she said, drawing an implicit contrast with the more recently arrived Sullivan — but, on the stump, she used her father’s family history to illustrate that point, rather than her mother’s.
Shaheen has tried to turn Sullivan’s denunciations back on her. “I think the attempt to, you know, attack or target me is a way to distract people from who’s behind her campaign,” she said. Shaheen has repeatedly criticized Sullivan for accepting about $300,000 from people who have also given to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, including in an attack ad that began airing last month.
“Maura isn’t endorsed by AIPAC, and she hasn’t taken a dime from AIPAC or any corporate PAC,” Natalie Silver, Sullivan’s campaign manager, said.
Sullivan moved to New Hampshire shortly before announcing her first run for Congress in 2017. She lost the primary the following year to Chris Pappas, a darling of the state’s political establishment whose run for the Senate has opened the seat.
“Voters have a choice in this election,” Sullivan wrote on social media this week. “Change or more of the same.”
In One Graphic
Trump’s ballroom plan is just the beginning.
President Trump’s plans to remake Washington extend far beyond the White House ballroom, where construction was approved to continue Monday by the Supreme Court.
The six ongoing or planned construction projects the president has his sights on are supposed to be scrutinized by independent boards and commissions, whose job is to safeguard Washington’s monumental core. Trump has stacked those boards with allies, leaving opponents of the projects to turn to the courts — a route that can be difficult, as the Supreme Court ruling showed.
NUMBER OF THE DAY
About 30 percentage points
That’s the margin by which Senator Ed Markey, 80, beat his much younger opponent, Representative Seth Moulton, 47, to cruise to victory in Tuesday night’s Democratic primary for Senate in Massachusetts. Read more about the generational upset that wasn’t here.
ONE LAST THING
Trump’s executive order provides a second wind for MapQuest
The ’90s navigation pioneer MapQuest refused to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America on its interface after President Trump ordered the change as part of his trade war with Canada.
Now, it is enjoying a boost in downloads. (It kept the Gulf of Mexico, too.)
Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
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