The 2002 United States Senate election in New Hampshire was held on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Bob Smith was defeated in the Republican primary by U.S. Representative John E. Sununu. Sununu won the open seat, defeating Democratic Governor

Jeanne Shaheen Cynthia Jeanne Shaheen ( ; née Bowers, born January 28, 1947) is an American politician and former educator serving since 2009 as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from New Hampshire. A ...

. , this was the last time Republicans or a male candidate won the Class 2 Senate seat in New Hampshire; Shaheen defeated Sununu in their 2008 rematch for this seat and has held it since 2009. This was Shaheen’s only unsuccessful run for elected office.

Republican primary

Campaign

Senator Bob Smith, the incumbent Republican Senator, briefly left the party in 1999 to run for president as an independent, claiming that the Republican platform was "not worth the paper it's written on". He rejoined the GOP a few months later, saying he made a mistake. Nonetheless, the party never fully forgave him, and some of his fellow Republican Senators went so far as to endorse his primary opponent, Rep. John Sununu, who would go on to win by more than eight percentage points.

Results

General election

Candidates

* Ken Blevens (

Libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

) *

, Governor of New Hampshire (Democratic) * John E. Sununu, U.S. Representative (Republican)

Campaign

During the campaign, there was a major scandal that involved the use of a

telemarketing Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products, subscriptions or services, either over the phone or throu ...

firm hired by that state's Republican Party (NHGOP) for election tampering. The GOP Marketplace, based in

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several County (United States), counties and independent city (United States), independent cities in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. ...

, jammed another phone bank being used by the state Democratic Party and the

firefighter A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as hazardous material incidents, medical in ...

s' union for efforts to turn out voters on behalf of then-

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Election Day Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections ...

. The tampering involved using a call center to jam the phone lines of a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) operation. In the end, 900 calls were made for 45 minutes of disruption to the Democratic-leaning call centers. In addition to criminal prosecutions, disclosures in the case have come from a civil suit filed by the state's Democratic Party against the state's Republican Party (now settled). Four men have been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, federal crimes and sentenced to

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

for their involvement . One conviction has been reversed by an appeals court, a decision prosecutors are appealing.

James Tobin James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard University, Harvard and Yale Uni ...

, freed on appeal, was later indicted on charges of lying to the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

during the original investigation.

Predictions

Results

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

* Grafton (largest city:

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

)

References

{{New Hampshire elections

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

2002 New Hampshire elections

Republican primary

Campaign

Results

General election

Candidates

Campaign

Predictions

Results

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

See also

References