# Don Bolduc Retired **U.S. Army brigadier general** and the **2022 Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire**. He is on this site for what he did in October 2026: he endorsed the Democrat. ## Career before politics A Laconia, New Hampshire police officer before the Army, Bolduc graduated from Salem State University as a distinguished military graduate and took an M.S. in security technologies from the U.S. Army War College. He served from sergeant through brigadier general, including on the Office of the Secretary of Defense's joint staff, and has described himself in his own campaign materials as a career soldier rather than a politician. ## The 2020 and 2022 Senate runs | Year | Contest | Result | |---|---|---| | 2020 | Republican primary, U.S. Senate (NH) | Lost to Bryant Messner | | 2022 | Republican primary, U.S. Senate (NH) | **Won, 36.9%** (52,629 votes) over Chuck Morse, 35.7% — a margin of roughly 1,200 votes | | 2022 | General election, U.S. Senate (NH) | **Lost.** Maggie Hassan (D) **53.5%** (332,193) to Bolduc **44.4%** (275,928); Jeremy Kauffman (L) 2.0% | The nine-point general-election loss is the number that matters for 2026, because it was a year Republicans expected to win New Hampshire and did not. ### The election-denial reversal Bolduc campaigned through the 2022 primary asserting that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. **The day after winning the nomination** he reversed, telling Fox News he had done "a lot of research" and concluded the election was not stolen — a repositioning widely read as a general-election necessity in a state that had just rejected that argument. Trump endorsed him anyway, late in October 2022, while publicly needling him over the reversal. ## October 15, 2026 — endorsing Chris Pappas Bolduc joined the **"Country Before Party" steering committee** unveiled by the [[Chris Pappas]] campaign on 15 October 2026: **58 New Hampshire Republicans and independents** endorsing the Democratic nominee over [[John E. Sununu]] in [[NH-Sen-2026]], nineteen days before the election. Alongside him on the list are former Republican state senator Rick Russman and veteran Army Ranger and Green Beret Jim Steiner. > [!quote] Don Bolduc, 15 October 2026 > "Chris Pappas's unwavering dedication to our veterans and his efforts to foster bipartisan cooperation set him apart as a leader who will prioritize the needs of all constituents." ## Why it matters here A party's most recent Senate nominee endorsing the other party's candidate in the same state, in the same decade, is not an ordinary defection. It is the clearest available signal that the coalition Bolduc ran on in 2022 no longer holds together in New Hampshire — and it lands in the cycle's closest Senate race, in a state whose outcome decides whether the Democratic firewall in the Northeast holds. The pattern is not confined to New Hampshire. Several prominent Republicans endorsed Democratic candidates in the weeks before the 2026 midterms; this is the instance where the endorser was the party's own last nominee for the seat. ## See Also - [[NH-Sen-2026]] — the race - [[Chris Pappas]] — the Democrat he endorsed - [[John E. Sununu]] — the Republican nominee he declined to endorse - [[Scott Brown]] — the opponent Sununu beat in the 2026 Republican primary