Fact-check: Sununu and Pappas debate in Granite State ahead of US Senate midterm
PolitiFact ·
MANCHESTER, N.H. — With less than a week until Election Day, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas and Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu sparred over the best solutions for the increasing cost of living and who would deliver better results for New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate.
Although the candidates critiqued each other over past votes and personal finances, it was less combative than other states’ Senate debates this year, with a focus on policies for high gas prices and healthcare costs.
Pappas depicted Sununu as an ally of President Donald Trump, as Sununu sought to distance himself from some of Trump’s most unpopular policies like the Iran war and tariffs. Sununu tied Pappas to former President Joe Biden’s policies and national Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi.
Pappas represents New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House. Sununu served in the U.S. Senate from 2003 to 2009.
WMUR-TV, a PolitiFact partner, hosted the debate. PolitiFact fact-checked some claims from the debate.
Pappas: Sununu called tariffs “important. He said last fall that the impact was modest.”
Pappas continued, “Well, tell that to Judy from Hollis, who lost her job last fall. She works in the automotive industry. She was laid off of work with her coworkers. The impact on her was anything but modest.”
The tariff comments omit context.
In an October 2025 interview after announcing his candidacy, Sununu backed the idea of Trump using tariffs as a negotiation strategy to remove barriers hindering American trade with foreign countries. He said Trump’s tariffs signaled that countries would need to change or face tariffs.
“I think that message is an important one,” Sununu said. “I’d love for Congress and the president to settle on a tariff rate so that businesses can make good, consistent decisions. But the message that these countries have to do more to get rid of their nontariff barriers is a very fair one.”
In a September 2025 radio interview , Sununu was asked whether he supports Trump’s tariffs. He said he was concerned about the inconsistent rates, but the economy wasn’t significantly affected.
“The courts are going to sort this out … Economic impact has been very modest,” he said. “It certainly hasn’t impacted inflation directly in any significant way, and that was a big concern. I think the most important thing is that we settle on a rate and stop going back and forth.”
During the debate, Sununu challenged Pappas’ depiction: “Digging out one word is deceptive. Of course, they’re not modest,” he said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have said that the trade war with Canada is a huge mistake.”
Sununu in August criticized Trump’s levying of 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, and has called for dropping tariffs on construction materials .
Sununu, Pappas spar about Iran war
Sununu said he had “said from the beginning it was a mistake to attack Iran without a plan for keeping (the Strait of Hormuz) open.”
Pappas pushed back, saying, “You did support that operation at the beginning, and it was very clear from the outset that Donald Trump didn’t have a plan to keep the Strait open and to keep costs low for Granite Staters.”
We found no public statement from Sununu at the beginning of the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched Feb. 28, that it was a mistake to attack without a plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. The Strait is a key passageway for crude oil shipments and Iran has exerted control over commercial traffic there.
In March, Sununu said on WABC radio that the approach to the war “has been effective, very effective” and the war objectives were clear.
In a March 12 interview on the New Hampshire Journal podcast, Sununu said national security interests should guide U.S. decisions. The Trump administration has said Iran can’t have access to a nuclear weapon and its ballistic missile program must be eliminated and the country must stop funding global terror, Sununu said.
“Those are the objectives here, and I do think we’re on our way to achieving them,” Sununu said.
In more recent months, he shifted his stance.
In August, Sununu told New Hampshire Public Radio it was “a tactical mistake” to go to war “without having a plan for protecting the strait of Hormuz.”
In late October Sununu again said it was a strategic mistake to enter the war without a plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Pappas: Sununu “cashed in working for one of the biggest lobbying firms in Washington, D.C., and his net worth surged to an estimated $35 million.”
This is exaggerated.
It’s common for lawmakers to benefit from their congressional experience after leaving office.
Financial disclosure forms show that Sununu’s net worth is between $7.9 million and $36.3 million — far higher than it was when he left the Senate in January 2009. But Pappas used the high end of the range when he could have used the low end.
From 2009 to 2024, Sununu served on the board of Boston Scientific, a major producer of medical devices. He earned close to $5 million from Boston Scientific in compensation and stock grants.
As for the lobbying firm, Sununu worked for about a decade with a prominent law firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, which lobbied for a wide range of companies. But Sununu never filed a lobbying disclosure form for any clients, which is required to lobby Congress or the executive branch. So he was never formally a lobbyist.
Sununu: Pappas has “consistently voted to increase taxes.”
This is exaggerated. We rated a similar claim about Pappas voting 68 times to increase taxes False .
Procedural votes, which are used to define the rules of debate, account for most of the 68 votes. There were 16 separate congressional bills on a list Sununu’s campaign previously provided to PolitiFact, but they each had about three procedural votes before reaching a final vote. Another vote was for a nonbinding “sense of the House” bill.
In addition, the bills weren’t only about taxes. One was a $3 trillion pandemic relief bill that included stimulus checks and tax cuts for some people. Another was the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which spent $1.2 trillion on transportation. A third was the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which increased tax on corporations but also gave tax breaks to people who own cars and homes if they invested in cleaner energy sources.
Many of these bills passed with overwhelming support, including from most Republicans.
In 2025, Pappas voted against Trump’s signature tax and spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That cut taxes for people who work overtime, collect tips or are 65 and older, and it extended tax cuts from Trump’s first term. Pappas said he joined all Democrats in opposing the bill because of its cuts to healthcare.
The Pappas campaign has also pointed us to several votes to cut taxes that the Sununu claim doesn’t consider, including expanded child tax credits.
Pappas: “When John Sununu was in the Senate, yes, he did propose privatizing Social Security.”
This is Mostly True .
In the 1990s and the early 2000s, lawmakers debated whether to shift some or all of Social Security’s finances into private accounts invested in stocks and bonds. That would have been a shift from the policy of using payroll taxes for benefits.
Sununu was pushing for the idea as early as 2000. He also put forward bills in 2001, 2004 and 2005. In 2005, the New Hampshire “Sunday News” described Sununu as “a key national player in the effort to solve Social Security’s financial problems and enable participants to invest a portion of their Social Security in personal savings accounts.”
During the debate, Sununu countered Pappas’ characterization of his Social Security legislation, saying any suggestion that people would be removed from the system is “not true.” The legislation, Sununu said, would have maintained “a guaranteed minimum benefit for everyone.”
Pappas glossed over the fact that the policy changes would not have been mandatory for people receiving Social Security benefits. Sununu’s legislation — which was never enacted — would have made participation in the private accounts voluntary or limited by age to new entrants to the program.
PolitiFact New York Staff Writer Conor Amendola contributed to this story.
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