Prices as of August 25, 2026, 3:13 p.m. Eastern. Record compiled from 30 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.
John E. Sununu will not be at the podium on Monday night. WMUR reported at 2:04 p.m. on Tuesday, August 25, that the former senator, who carries Donald Trump's endorsement into the September 8 Republican primary for New Hampshire's open U.S. Senate seat, has declined the station's Granite State Debates invitation. That debate, at 8 p.m. on Monday, August 31, is the primary's only statewide televised debate. His campaign's statement: "John has already done two debates and 20 joint appearances with Scott Brown. With just days to go before the primary, we are focused on the town-to-town, person-to-person campaign that has given John such great momentum and put him in a position to defeat Chris Pappas in November."
Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator running second, answered the same afternoon. "It's the D.C. way, not the New Hampshire way," he told WMUR. "The New Hampshire way is to have a debate." By evening NH Journal reported Sununu is skipping its own primary debate too, and Brown had sharpened it: "Not only does it reek of elite privilege in not having to answer to the people of New Hampshire, but it's a horrible disservice to them as well."
The people with money on the outcome barely noticed. On Kalshi, where a price in cents is a probability, the contract that pays $1 if Sununu wins the nomination was quoted at 97.5 cents by buyers and 97.8 by sellers on Tuesday afternoon, a middle price of 97.6 cents, or roughly a 98% chance. In sportsbook terms that is about -4,000. Brown's contract sat at 2.3 cents on the buy side and 3.5 on the sell side, about 2.9 in the middle: a 3% shot, roughly +3,300 in moneyline terms.
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The Board
As of August 25, 2026, 3:13 p.m. Eastern (Kalshi, cents = probability):
| Outcome | Price | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| John E. Sununu | 97.6¢ | about 98% (≈-4,000 in sportsbook terms) |
| Scott Brown | 2.9¢ | about 3% (≈+3,300) |
The prices are the midpoint between what buyers offer and what sellers ask, on a small book (about $12,700 traded lifetime on Sununu, roughly $6,800 still open). Polymarket's version of the same market, pulled at the same 3:13 p.m. Eastern moment, had Sununu at 96.7 cents and Brown at 2.95. One oddity: Kalshi still lists Gov. Chris Sununu at 1.8 cents though he declined to run in April 2025, a name-confusion trade Brown says he meets on the doorstep too.
What the Models Think
We also asked a panel of AI models the same question without showing them the price, only the sourced record below. Five of the panel's eight seats ran this board. Blended together, their middle answer put Sununu at 95%, a shade below the 97.6-cent market, and the widest gap between any two models was 6 points. One model: "Sununu leads every public poll by 20–46 points (54–24 in the Aug 17–18 St. Anselm), holds Trump's endorsement, and has a roughly 3.6x cash advantage two weeks out."
These are model estimates, not predictions. The market has real money behind it; the panel has only the record.
The Man Trump Endorsed Once Called Him A Loser
The seat is open because Jeanne Shaheen is retiring, and both Republicans have lost to her: Sununu, 61, beat her for the Senate in 2002 and lost it back in 2008; Brown, 67, won Ted Kennedy's old Massachusetts seat in 2010, moved north and lost to her in 2014, then served as Trump's ambassador to New Zealand.
Trump picked Sununu on Sunday, February 1, 2026. His Truth Social post, as reported by NBC News, called Sununu an "America First Patriot" and closed: "John E. Sununu has my Complete and Total Endorsement — HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN." Two years earlier, on January 22, 2024, Sununu had written a Union Leader op-ed headlined "John E. Sununu: Donald Trump is a loser," endorsing Nikki Haley.
"If he's our nominee, we're going to lose, and we're going to lose bad." … "As a lifelong Republican, I am tired of losing." (John E. Sununu, Union Leader, January 22, 2024)
Brown, to Semafor on March 27: "Was I surprised that he endorsed the original never-Trumper who was with Kasich, Haley, and called him a loser? Everyone was surprised, and the MAGA people who were with me before are definitely with me now. What did he sell his soul?"
The polls say the MAGA people did not follow. Sununu has led every public poll of the primary since January, by 20 to 46 points; the newest, Saint Anselm College on August 17–18 (678 likely voters, margin of error 3.7 points), has him 54% to 24% with 23% undecided. Federal Election Commission filings through June 30 show Sununu with $2,672,646 in the bank to Brown's $735,811. That is why Kalshi has priced this nomination as settled for months, even as the November seat leans Democratic on the map that decides Senate control.
The Epstein Mailer, The Qatar Answer, And The "DC Coronation"
Brown has wanted this debate since before Trump chose sides. On NH Journal's podcast on November 20, 2025, he called the Senate GOP's embrace of Sununu a "DC coronation" and said: "I hope he debates me. I've heard he doesn't want to debate me because I'll kick his ass… just like Martha Coakley did."
The ugliest chapter came in February, when a May 2010 email from Jeffrey Epstein to Gates adviser Boris Nikolic surfaced in the released Epstein files with the line "John Sununu has good stories." No source has established which John Sununu it meant, and none alleges the candidate ever met Epstein. In the last week of March, Strong As Granite PAC, a pro-Brown super PAC, spent $130,000 mailing likely Republican voters a screenshot of the email under the question "Why would a Sununu show up in the files…?" It landed the day after Saint Anselm showed Brown down 49–28, NH Journal reported on March 24.
"It's desperate and crazy… Crazy is one thing. Desperate is another. But when you have both in politics, it shows you are losing." (Republican consultant Matthew Bartlett, NH Journal, March 24, 2026)
Sununu spokesman Mike Schrimpf: "Perhaps lies and smears are how they do politics in Massachusetts, but in New Hampshire people prefer the truth." Brown would not disown the mailer: "Nothing has changed." The story got a second act on July 16, when The Washington Post ran Dan Merica's analysis headlined "Sununu's false answer about Qatar fuels Epstein-files fight." As the Union Leader summarized it on July 26, the Post had a photo of Sununu at a World Economic Forum summit in Doha, the event on the attendee list Nikolic sent Epstein, and Sununu had been caught on camera in March saying he had never been to Doha. Schrimpf: "The fact that he has traveled to Qatar is a matter of public record." By August 20 the campaign had acknowledged Sununu attended, per Granite Post.
Under the personal fight sits a policy split. Asked on WMUR's CloseUp in June whether he would have ordered the strikes on Iran, Sununu said, "Look, if you're asking me if I would have done this, no, no." Brown: "Yeah, I think it was appropriate, because at what point do you just say enough?" At the June 24 Hampton debate his refrain was "Follow the money."
Now price the controversy. The mailer's allegation, the Qatar answer, the Iran split and the coronation attack all circulated between March and August, and Sununu's poll lead grew from 21 points to 30. On Kalshi the tell is the gap between buyers and sellers: the day before the debate story broke, buyers offered 94 cents for Sununu while sellers held out for 98.3, which is how thin this market gets when news hits. A day later, with the no-show public, the gap was three-tenths of a cent.
What Moves The Price From Here
- Monday, August 31, 8 p.m.: the WMUR debate with one podium. Brown gets statewide television to himself; a week of empty-podium coverage is the only live catalyst left.
- A final UNH or Saint Anselm primary poll. The models named the number: a Sununu lead under 15 points would push his price down; anything near 54–24 pulls it back toward 98.
- The November picture. Saint Anselm's August test has Pappas beating Sununu 48–41 and Brown 49–37, and Polymarket had Democrats at 89.5 cents to hold the seat. A nominee at 98 cents and a seat at 10 is the whole story of this primary.
This one settles on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, when New Hampshire votes.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. John E. Sununu photo by Unknown author, licensed Public domain; photo cropped, toned, and composited. Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of August 25, 2026, 3:13 p.m. Eastern, and will keep moving until this market settles after the Tuesday, September 8, 2026 vote. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state). OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst: any model or panel figures referenced are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. This article does not advocate for or against any candidate or party. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.
