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Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is the latest Democrat in the Senate to announce her retirement rather than seek re-election in the 2026 midterms.
The Wednesday announcement by the former governor and three-term senator in a key New England swing state will further complicate the Democrats' efforts to regain control of the Senate from the Republicans in next year's elections.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., speaks before President Joe Biden arrives to deliver remarks on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, at NHTI Concord Community College, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
"I ran for public office to make a difference for the people of New Hampshire," Shaheen said. "That purpose has never and will never change. But today, after careful consideration, I am announcing that I have made the difficult decision not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2026."
Shaheen, who turned 78 earlier this year, added that "it's just time."
There was intense speculation regarding whether Shaheen, who first won election to the Senate in 2008 and who this year became the first woman in history to hold one of the top two positions on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will seek another term in office.
Shaheen raised a paltry $170,000 in the final fundraising quarter of 2024, which sparked buzz that the senator might not be preparing for another re-election campaign. But sources in Shaheen’s political orbit noted that the senator did not emphasize fundraising in the fourth quarter of last year, which included the final month of the 2024 presidential election.
Fox News confirmed that Shaheen had a major fundraiser scheduled for March 20 in Manchester, New Hampshire. There's no word yet on whether that event has been canceled.
National Republicans see opportunities to flip the Senate seat in New Hampshire from blue to red, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had already run ads targeting Shaheen over her defense of USAID funding that the Trump administration is axing.
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Former Sen. Scott Brown, the former senator from Massachusetts who later narrowly lost to Shaheen in New Hampshire in the 2014 election, is seriously considering a 2026 run, in a possible rematch against Shaheen.
Brown, who served four years as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand during President Donald Trump’s first administration, has been holding meetings with Republicans across New Hampshire for a couple of months and has met with GOP officials in the nation’s capital.
It has been 15 years since Republicans last won a Senate election in New Hampshire, with Democrats victorious in the past four elections.
Republicans flipped four Democrat-held Senate seats in last November’s elections to win back control of the chamber. They now control the chamber and are aiming to expand their majority in 2026.
Besides New Hampshire, the GOP is targeting battleground Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he would not seek re-election. Also on their 2026 radar is Georgia, another key battleground state where Republicans view first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff as vulnerable.
Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota announced last month that she would not bid for another term in next year’s midterms, giving the GOP hope that it might be competitive in the blue-leaning state.
But Republicans are also playing defense in the 2026 cycle.
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Democrats plan to go on offense in blue-leaning Maine, where moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins is up for re-election, as well as in battleground North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is also up in 2026.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
