Pappas focused campaign against Republican John Sununu on serving as a bulwark against Trump administration

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Chris Pappas, the four-term Democratic congressman, has won New Hampshire’s US Senate race, making him the first out gay man to serve in the upper chamber.

Pappas, 46, is a centrist voice in the US House who has at times broken with his party on major legislation. He focused his Senate campaign on serving as a bulwark against the Trump administration, which is unpopular in the Granite State, and defeated the former senator John Sununu in a closely fought contest.

‘It’s the disregard for the rule of law. It just seems like they’re thumbing their nose at it’

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In the battleground state of Maine, Todd Cox, 63, has supported the state’s incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins not once, but twice, in previous elections. Not this time.

On Tuesday, Cox, a technology professional, cast his vote for Collins’s Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson – driven not by pressing local issues, but broader concern “for the direction the country is going in”, he said.

Republican John Sununu tries to distance himself from unpopular president in race against Chris Pappas that has gone from ‘toss-up to ‘lean Democrat’

Chris Pappas is stopping himself from getting too excited ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election.

“I take nothing for granted,” said the four-term US representative and Democratic nominee for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat. “This is a very purple, competitive state. Elections are never in the bag here.”