The soon-to-be-retired Senate veteran Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images
Democrats anxious to deny Donald Trump and his Republican Party a governing trifecta as soon as possible are feeling pretty good about their prospects for flipping the House in 2026, given the GOP’s fragile margin of control and the historical pattern of sizable midterm losses for the president’s party. But the Senate, which has the power to confirm Trump’s executive branch and judicial nominations, is really going to be a reach. Democrats would need to flip four Senate seats to win control of the chamber. And an already difficult landscape is being made even tougher by the retirements of Democratic incumbents Gary Peters of Michigan, Tina Smith of Minnesota, and now Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. All three of these open seats could potentially trigger competitive races in 2026.
Of the three retirees, Shaheen certainly has the best case for having earned the right to call it a day. She’s 78 years old (Peters is 66 and Smith is 67) and is completing her third full Senate term. Before that, she served three two-year terms as governor of New Hampshire. There’s also a robust Democratic bench in her state; both current U.S. House members, Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander (along with former congresswoman Annie Kuster), are considering races to succeed Shaheen.
On the Republican side, former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown publicly indicated interest in this seat the minute Shaheen announced her retirement. Brown gained global renown by winning a 2010 special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy in a huge upset that nearly derailed the passage of the Affordable Care Act. After losing the seat in 2012 to Elizabeth Warren, he moved back to his native New Hampshire and ran against Shaheen in 2014, losing by three points in a very good year for Republicans. He has plenty of name ID but would be less formidable than the GOP’s dream candidate, former governor Chris Sununu, who passed up a Senate race in 2024 but hasn’t ruled out a run for Shaheen’s seat.
Looking at the big picture, as Nathaniel Rakich points out, these retirements are probably better timed for Democrats in 2026 than in an election year when Republicans are more likely to have the wind at their back. But still, given the emergency represented by Trump 2.0, the future is now for Democrats, and having to fight to hang on to three seats they currently hold reduces their already slim odds for regaining the Senate. According to the Cook Political Report’s race ratings, there are only three Republican-held Senate seats up in 2026 that are anything other than a lock for the GOP: those held by Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina (both rated “Lean R”) and Jon Husted of Ohio (rated “Likely R”). Meanwhile, four Democratic-held Senate seats are vulnerable: the races to fill the Shaheen and Smith seats are rated “Lean D,” while the contest over Peters’s seat and a likely big-time challenge to incumbent Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff are rated as “Toss Ups.” Even if 2026 turns out to be a very good year for Democrats, it’s hard to see where that fourth flipped seat would come from and easy to see possibilities for losses.
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