There’s a backlog of interesting political stories to cover (I’m currently in Canada picking up our daughter after another year of college, and I had a brief medical scare that sidelined me for a day or so earlier this week), but it is full steam ahead, and I’ll get to some of them over the next week:
A slew of retirements and announcements in the NH House and Senate, including in some of 2026’s most important downballot races in the state
A pair of recent UNH polls inquiring about New Hampshire residents’ mental health, as well as their take on the direction of the country, and feelings about President Trump
Some under-the-radar-screen news from the Democrats’ primary in the 1st congressional district, and a question I’m increasingly getting asked: What should activists be looking at for tangible signs that a congressional candidate has a chance of winning their primary…or is even gaining tangible momentum?
For today, however, I want to share a number of resources related to the research I’ve been doing lately surrounding the 2026 NH State Senate playing field.
Now Available Online: This Week’s “NH State Senate 2026 Projection Show, V1.0”
Earlier this week (Tuesday, the 28th), I revealed the first set of 2026 Senate projections during a live online broadcast. It is chock full of data, analysis of most of the state’s 24 districts, and actual projections based on a range of potential scenarios that could play out this November.
You can watch the full broadcast on my YouTube channel here. The nitty gritty about the specific districts, as well as the projections themselves, begin here. If you want just the projections themselves, you can start here.
What I’ve attached to this post is the pre-game Substack Live lunchtime broadcast I did for paid subscribers earlier that same day. It does not have the charts and graphics, and is shorter - probably more “podcast friendly” - so I made it into a podcast episode, because (unlike the full projection event from Tuesday night) the Substack Live preview works for the “mind’s eye”.
You can listen to the podcast version of this preview show by clicking on the audio link above, or by listening to The Steve Marchand Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Please subscribe, share, and review my podcast, as it tells their algorithms to spread the word about the podcast more widely.
Three Quick Charts That Tell a Story About the 2026 State Senate Map
As part of the live program this past Tuesday, there were a ton of charts, many of which seek to “set the scene” for viewers. These downballot races are all happening in the context of big, broad macro-factors which play big roles in determining how hard or easy these swing districts are going to be for Democrats to win in November. This first chart stacks up how one of the factors - the political environment of each of the 24 Senate districts - looks entering the 2026 political season:
1. Most of the defense is getting played by NH Republicans.
The chart below ranks the 24 seats from the most Democratic performing (the furthest left) to the most GOP-friendly (the furthest right). Here it is, followed by a few notes:
The higher the bar, the bigger the Partisan Voter Index (PVI) is. District 5, held by Sen, Sue Prentiss, includes Hanover and Lebanon, the bluest part of the state. My current model projects her district is D+17.96 - that is, her district acts about 18 points more Democratic than the state overall in statewide general elections. That’s really blue! All the way to the right is District 22, held by Sen. Daryl Abbas. It has a PVI of R+10.92, meaning it acts almost 11 points redder than the state overall.
As you approach the center of chart, you generally get to the most competitive districts in the state:
District 11 is held by a Republican, Sen. Tim McGough. It is the only blue-leaning Senate district in NH currently held by the GOP…but it is the lightest of blues, at D+0.10. It is very suburban, including Milford, Amherst, and Merrimack, and it is doing suburban things - namely, acting like a long-time red district steadily becoming light blue. This pattern is true in suburbs in Wisconsin, Virginia, Georgia…and New Hampshire.
District 12 is R+1.73 in my latest model, the lightest red district in the state. It is currently held by GOP Sen. Kevin Avard, and is as suburban as it gets (Hollis, Brookline, parts of Nashua).
Districts 18, 9, 7, 3, 1, 2 and 16 are all within the range of PVIs that can theoretically flip in a normal political year, depending on the quality of candidates, the money, the field efforts, the national and state political environments…you get the idea.
The good news for the NHGOP right now is that they pretty much hold all the seats in the “purple zone” - that’s why they have a 16-8 majority! The bad news? It also means they hold virtually all of the vulnerable seats in 2026. If the political environment sways towards Democrats much at all this fall, it puts a large number of these “purple” seats held by the GOP into peril. Which brings us to chart #2.
2. My modeling tools suggest that there are an increasing number of 2026 outcomes which lead to meaningful swings towards Democrats.
This past week was V1.0 of the Projection Show, because downballot outcomes are heavily dependent on big picture factors…including factors about which we simply don’t know yet. If I had done this model for 2024 in late April, I would not have been to plug in variables like:
Joe Biden will have a train wreck of a debate, wait a month, drop out, and then Kamala Harris will be nominated by acclimation
Donald Trump will come within an inch of being assassinated
Kelly Ayotte will end up winning the gubernatorial race by almost 10 points
A lot can change between now and November: Will gas be $2.75/gallon, or $4.50? Will the gubernatorial race be a nail-biter (I think it will be), or will Ayotte’s incumbency eventually lengthen into a win similar to 2024? The likely U.S. Senate general election matchup of Pappas vs. Sununu seems stubbornly close in most polls, despite Democrats’ significant tailwinds - will that race stay within the margin of error, or do the national trends eventually translate into the NH-SEN polling?
Right now, my modeling suggests that even the median outcome (that is, the midpoint of the range of simulations) is a pretty significant flip towards Democrats in the Senate (not to mention the NH House, where this scenario would almost certainly result in a Democratic majority). Here’s the slide from Tuesday night’s presentation:
If I had done this simulation three months ago, the median outcome would have been a little less rosy for Democrats. Why?
A few factors continue moving towards Democrats, including Trump’s job approval ratings (which are actually going below 40 percent in many polls), and a few more recent polls on the U.S. Senate race suggesting Pappas may have a little more of a lead.
The passage of time is helping Democrats in my model. Basically, think of the model as a hurricane tracker. The further from landfall the eye of a storm is, the wider the range of potential landfall locations there are. The storm could fizzle out, or get stronger. It could veer off into the ocean…or make dead aim for the Gulf of Mexico (it is still the Gulf of Mexico, sigh). That uncertainty has the effect of lowering the probability of any specific outcome occurring.
But with every month that goes by, the lack of significant movement back towards the GOP makes both the chances of such movement, and the time left for such a movement, less likely. And that has the effect of increasing the probability of positive 2026 outcomes for Democrats.
All of this is to say that, as long as Kelly Ayotte’s job approval rating stays below 50%, and Donald Trump’s stay at or below 40%, my model’s median outcome is likely to stay at what you see above, or improve. Right now, the model sees Shannon Chandley (in District 11) and Matt McLaughlin (in District 9) as being most directly helped by current conditions, with several other Democrats being in a position to compete for at least one additional flip.
3. You might be surprised at which districts get competitive at the top of the “reasonable scenarios” range, and Democrats should be ready for that scenario.
I want to be clear: I am not predicting any specific outcome today, for all the reasons I’ve been writing. It is early, and a lot will transpire. There are too many variables we don’t know (we don’t even know all of the candidates for these Senate seats yet!). But at the 80th percentile range of my models (the slide above was the median, or 50th percentile), some very exciting things are in play for NH Democrats. You’ll have to watch the presentation to see exactly what the projection says at that level (which I call the “Best Reasonable Case Scenario”), but we’ve seen it before. In 2006 and 2018, the political environment got blue enough to put some seats in play that most did not expect, even in the final weeks. I’m suggesting there are a few seats Democrats should at least consider keeping an eye on for this increasingly-plausible scenario, including:
I wrote about this one a week ago a bit, specifically because I see Hooksett and Goffstown coming towards Democrats quickly, and Manchester Ward 1 getting even bluer. This one has Upset Special written all over it. Finally, I want to mention a pair of districts that are further outside the projection zone at present, but which increasingly intrigue me:
For different reasons, these are two seats not currently being discussed, and which I am not suggesting are likely to flip, but where the 80th percentile outcomes bring all kinds of districts into play:
District 3 is mainly Carroll County - notable in that it is getting blue faster than almost any county in the state, and is also growing in population. These two factors are related.
District 2, in contrast, shares neither of these traits - it is neither growing nor getting bluer - but the matchup between Senator Tim Lang and Democrat Kurt Webber provides matchup opportunities on issues and biography that, in a maximum Blue Wave year, get interesting. I’ll have more to say about all of these districts as Election Season kicks in.
