Chris Pappas

Overview

Chris Pappas is the Democratic congressman from New Hampshire’s 1st district and, since September 8, 2026, his party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jeanne Shaheen. He would become the first openly gay man ever elected to the Senate if he wins in November (Watermark Out News). But the part of his record that the current coverage wave skips — the part that matters for anyone tracing the Trump era — is the name on the other side of his 2022 House race: Karoline Leavitt, then a 25-year-old former Trump aide, now the youngest White House press secretary in American history. Pappas beat her, and the rematch that never happened keeps echoing: Leavitt went to the White House briefing room while Pappas climbed toward the Senate (Al Jazeera).

The 2022 race against the future press secretary

When Pappas sought his third House term in 2022, the Republican who won the primary to face him was a 25-year-old communications staffer who had worked in the Trump White House — Karoline Leavitt, running for New Hampshire’s 1st district. Pappas defeated her in the general election, a win that looks different in retrospect: within three years, Leavitt was named White House press secretary, the youngest person ever to hold the job, before leaving the role in August 2026 (Al Jazeera). The 2022 result made Pappas one of the few Democrats anywhere who can say he personally beat a member of Trump’s inner circle at the ballot box — and the irony hasn’t gone unnoticed in New Hampshire, where Leavitt’s national profile has only grown since.

Pappas framed the race the way he frames everything: as a working Democrat in a purple state. He told CNHI News during the 2026 primary that he had “shown through four tough campaigns for the House that I can attract Republicans and independents” and could “truly build a coalition” (CNHI News). The 2022 contest was the proof of concept — a MAGA-aligned challenger with Trump-world credentials, defeated in a district that has swung both ways.

A century-old restaurant and Manchester roots

Pappas’s political identity is inseparable from a building on Hooksett Road in Manchester. He is the fourth-generation owner of the Puritan Backroom, the family restaurant business that opened in 1917 (govinfo). His Greek immigrant ancestors opened the Puritan as a candy and ice cream shop in 1917 and added the Backroom — a Greek-inspired American restaurant — in 1974. A century later, it was named the best restaurant in New Hampshire by Foodie Haven, and its chicken tenders are a local institution: Manchester residents insist the Backroom invented the chicken tender, and in 2023 the city claimed the title “Chicken Tender Capital of the World” (Akron Beacon Journal).

The restaurant is also a fixture of New Hampshire’s retail-politics circuit — the kind of place every presidential primary candidate has to visit — which means the Pappas name carried instant recognition before he ever ran for anything. One analysis of the 2026 Senate primary noted that “the Pappas family name also proved advantageous, given their ownership of the Puritan Backroom, a century-old Manchester restaurant that is a staple of the state’s retail politics circuit.” He was born in Manchester on June 4, 1980, graduated from Manchester Central High School in 1998, and earned his A.B. in government from Harvard in 2002 (govinfo).

The bipartisan record

Pappas has held elected office almost continuously since that Harvard graduation (Al Jazeera) — the New Hampshire State House from 2003 to 2007, Hillsborough County treasurer from 2007 to 2011, and the New Hampshire Executive Council from 2013 to 2018 — before his 2018 election to Congress made him the first openly gay person to represent the state in Washington (govinfo).

In Washington he built the reputation that now defines his Senate pitch: the Lugar Center–McCourt School Bipartisan Index named him the most bipartisan Democrat in the House and the third most bipartisan member overall, measuring how often members co-sponsor bills from the other party and attract cross-party co-sponsors to their own bills (Manchester Ink Link). The Center for Effective Lawmaking separately ranked him the 12th most effective House Democrat and 14th most effective member of the full 435-seat chamber (Manchester Ink Link).

That bipartisanship has a voting record behind it, and it has cost him with progressives. He was one of just six House Democrats to vote against the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act in 2020, over concerns about its expungement provisions (CNHI News). In 2025 he was one of 46 House Democrats to join Republicans in voting for the Laken Riley Act, the immigration-enforcement bill named for a murdered Georgia nursing student (CNHI News). And in 2026 he sponsored the DISCLOSE Act, which would require super PACs and similar groups to disclose donors giving over $10,000 and block money transfers designed to hide contributors’ identities (CNHI News).

The 2026 Senate run

When three-term Senator Jeanne Shaheen announced she would not seek reelection, Pappas announced his candidacy on April 3, 2025, in Manchester (Al Jazeera). He entered as the establishment favorite and won the September 8 primary, defeating progressive challenger Karishma Manzur — a medical scientist and Democratic Socialists of America member — by a 61.8-to-36.1 margin (Watermark Out News).

The primary’s defining fight was over Israel. Manzur called Pappas a “genocide enabler” over his acceptance of pro-Israel contributions — his campaigns since 2018 have received over $600,000 in direct and earmarked contributions from AIPAC and more from other pro-Israel funders — while Pappas told Fox News Digital that Israel is “a historic ally of the United States” but that he has “vehement disagreements with the Netanyahu government,” calling the prime minister “incredibly reckless” (Fox News; CNHI News). In July 2026 he voted “present” on a measure to restrict weapons sales to Israel, calling it a “tough vote” and saying “what Netanyahu has done over the last few years is indefensible and unsupportable” (CNHI News).

He now faces former Senator John E. Sununu in November, in a race both parties treat as decisive for Senate control — Republicans haven’t won a New Hampshire Senate seat in 16 years (Watermark Out News; Fox News). A University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll in late August showed Sununu ahead 45 to 43 percent, within the 2.1-point margin of error (Watermark Out News). Endorsements in the primary included former Vice President Kamala Harris, who backed him in late August (Al Jazeera).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not report the November 2026 general-election outcome — the race is ongoing. It does not state Pappas’s 2022 vote margin or totals, since no fully-read source supplied them. It does not assert the newsletter-level claim that he was the only LGBTQ+ House member to vote for the 2024 NDAA’s anti-trans provision; that claim is recorded in the research brief as unverified. It does not evaluate whether the Puritan Backroom truly invented the chicken tender — the Beacon Journal notes that claim is unverifiable and disputed.