Incumbent Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) appears to be cruising to victory in New Hampshire’s gubernatorial election, up in recent polls and the prediction markets compared to her fellow statewide GOP candidate on the Senate ballot, John E. Sununu.
Both Ayotte and Sununu are former senators running statewide in the Granite State, seeking office in a difficult national environment for Republicans as they try to cut through the noise to appeal directly to voters. While Sununu’s race against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) has been close but has trended toward Pappas, with forecasters predicting the race as “lean Democrat,” Ayotte has distanced herself from her opponent, Democrat Cinde Warmington, while dominating the polls.
In a new Rasmussen Reports poll, Ayotte led Warmington in the governor’s race by 10 percentage points, sitting at 52% support while Warmington had 42%. In the same poll on the state’s Senate race, Democrat Pappas led Republican Sununu by six percentage points, sitting at 50% support while Sununu had 44% support.
Ayotte boasts a 9.5 percentage point average lead over Warmington, according to RealClearPolling’s polling average in each of the two statewide races, while Pappas has a 6.7-percentage-point average lead over Sununu. Cook Political Report also ranks the governor race as “likely Republican,” while the Senate race sits at “lean Democrat.”
In New Hampshire, Sununu has distanced himself from President Donald Trump on topics such as the Iran war, releasing advertisements talking about how he has “never even met” Trump, despite receiving his endorsement. Although Sununu has been pinned as a Republican who has the potential to swing independent voters to the right, Cook Political Report pointed to Trump’s current unpopularity in New Hampshire likely being difficult for Sununu to overcome in a national race, compared to Ayotte’s state race.
“Sununu is also still being helped by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s extremely strong reelection run — but we expect there to be a significant delta between Ayotte and Sununu’s support,” the forecaster’s Jessica Taylor wrote in early October. “In this type of cycle, federal and state races are simply different beasts, and New England voters have a long history of splitting their tickets.”
Meanwhile, the prediction market odds are heavily in Ayotte’s favor, with Kalshi pinging Ayotte at a 94% chance of winning, while the market predicts Pappas with a 90% chance. Political commentator Chris Cillizza floated Ayotte as a possible candidate to look for in the 2028 presidential elections based on the odds in the race.
The trend of state Republicans outperforming federal Republican candidates in 2026 is also occurring in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) appears to be outperforming Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for Senate.
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Abbot leads his reelection opponent, Democratic State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, by an average of 3.2 percentage points in polling, according to RealClearPolling’s average, while Democratic State Rep. James Talarico leads Paxton in the Senate race’s polling average by 1.8 percentage points.
Abbott leads the Kalshi odds with a 67% chance of winning, while Talarico has a 66% chance of winning, according to the prediction market. Cook Political Report pings the Texas governor race as “lean Republican,” while the Senate race is a toss-up.