The United States Senate has existed since 1789, and more than 2,000 people have served in the chamber.
Not one has ever been an openly gay man elected to it.
Chris Pappas now has a chance to become the first.
The four-term New Hampshire congressman won the Democratic Senate primary on September 8 and will face former Republican senator John E. Sununu in November.
The seat is open because Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen is retiring.
The race is expected to be closely watched nationally, with control of the Senate potentially turning on a small number of competitive contests.
But for LGBTQ+ voters, there is another reason this particular race stands out.
A Historic First Within Reach
Pappas has already broken one political barrier in his home state.
When he was elected to the House in 2018, he became New Hampshire’s first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress.
Eight years later, he is running for a seat in a chamber that has still never elected an openly gay man.
That history is not guaranteed.
Sununu previously represented New Hampshire in the Senate from 2003 to 2009, and the November contest is expected to be competitive.
But Pappas has now cleared the primary and moved one election away from a first that has been more than two centuries in the making.
And there was a particularly fitting image from primary day.
When Pappas arrived at the polls in Portsmouth, his husband, Vann Bentley, was beside him.
Chris And Vann
Pappas and Bentley announced their engagement in 2021 and married in February 2023.
When Pappas shared the news, he said the couple felt fortunate to have found each other and to be building a life together.
Their marriage also followed a political fight that was deeply personal for Pappas.
In December 2022, while speaking in Congress in support of the Respect for Marriage Act, Pappas talked about growing up gay in New Hampshire and wondering whether there would ever be a place for him or whether he would be able to have a family of his own.
He told his colleagues that he would marry “the love of my life” the following year.
A few months later, he did.
The Respect for Marriage Act became federal law in December 2022, strengthening federal recognition and interstate protections for valid same-sex and interracial marriages.
Pappas was one of the lawmakers who publicly championed it.
From Marriage Equality To Senate History
That makes the photograph of Chris and Vann together on primary day more than a nice campaign image.
It captures how much changed during Pappas’s own lifetime.
He grew up unsure whether marriage and family would be available to him.
He later stood on the House floor arguing for legal protection for those marriages.
Then he married Vann.
And now, with his husband beside him, he is running for a place in the U.S. Senate that no openly gay man has ever been elected to occupy.
November will decide whether that history is actually made.
Pappas still has to win a competitive general election, and voters will make that decision based on far more than one candidate’s sexuality.
But representation is part of the story too.
For generations of gay Americans, the idea of an openly gay married man campaigning seriously for the U.S. Senate would once have sounded almost impossible.
In 2026, Chris Pappas is one election away. ❤️🌈🇺🇸
📷 @pappasfornh
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