Ahead of his Senate launch, a poll tests John E. Sununu as a supporter of “women’s health” and LGBTQ rights. His record shows votes to restrict abortion/contraception, block hate-crimes expansion, and curb same-sex adoptions.
A poll circulated ahead of John E. Sununu’s Senate campaign announcement cast him as supportive of “women’s health” and LGBTQ+ rights. His voting record and public statements tell a different story
A poll that went out across New Hampshire ahead of John E. Sununu’s Senate campaign announcement this week indicated possible new messaging around the candidate’s positions that run contrary to his legislative record, framing Sununu as someone who believes in women’s health and opposes a national abortion ban.”
The poll also said Sununu is someone who “believes abortion access should be left up to the States And Will Oppose Efforts To Undermine New Hampshire’s Law That Protects Access To abortion,” and “when national Republicans tried to outlaw gay marriage, John Sununu voted against them.”
But contemporaneous reporting and congressional records show Sununu repeatedly opposed abortion rights, worked to limit access to contraception and abortion services, and voted against expanding federal hate-crime protections and adoption rights for LGBTQ+ couples.
The pre-announcement SurveyMonkey poll asserted that Sununu “believes abortion access should be left up to the states” and would “oppose efforts to undermine New Hampshire’s law that protects access to abortion.” It also suggested that “when national Republicans tried to outlaw gay marriage, John Sununu voted against them.”
Those portrayals collide with Sununu’s documented record.
As Seacoast Online put it as far back as 2002, Sununu’s “voting record [was] plainly anti-abortion”.
In a 1996 interview with the Concord Monitor, Sununu said plainly “I oppose abortion,” describing exceptions only “for rape, incest, [and] when the health of the mother is in danger” and described himself as “pro-life” in another.
In the Nashua Telegraph in October 2002, he reiterated that he opposed legal abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.
During his time in the U.S. Senate, Sununu voted to pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003 and voted against adding an exception for the life or health of the mother. He opposed the Feinstein substitute that would have protected women’s life or health when a fetus was viable, then voted for final passage of the ban. As Boston University’s campus newspaper reported at the time, both New Hampshire Republican senators backed the ban while Maine’s Republican senators opposed it citing women’s health risks.
Sununu also opposed measures to protect access to abortion care and contraception while serving in the US House of Representatives from 1997 to 2003, including:
- Voted in favor of allowing hospitals and providers to refuse to perform or pay for abortions and backed provisions shielding providers from discrimination for refusing abortion services.
- Voting against a motion tied to requiring hospitals to make emergency contraceptives and information available to rape victims and to require private plans to cover prescription contraceptives.
- Voting against requiring federal health plans to cover prescription contraceptives if they covered other prescription drugs.
Sununu also told the Union Leader he “opposes Roe v. Wade” in an interview in 2002 and in 2003 voted against a non-binding amendment to reaffirm the Supreme Court’s Roe decision (Vote 48, 3/12/03). In 2006, he voted to confirm Justice Samuel Alito (Vote 2, PN1059, 1/31/06), who authored the 2022 Dobbs opinion overturning Roe (Associated Press, 6/24/22).
Similarly, the poll’s suggestion that Sununu “stood up for LGBTQ+ rights” is undercut by multiple votes to block the expansion of federal hate-crime protections and to restrict adoption by same-sex couples.
Sununu voted against a motion urging negotiators to adopt the Senate’s hate-crimes language—described by the Los Angeles Times as the first “major expansion” to include gender, sexual orientation, and disability.
He supported a competing motion from Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urging conferees not to include the Senate hate-crimes amendment. During that debate, Graham argued federal involvement wasn’t needed, using the slur “the faggot that lived down the hall” while referencing a case, language recorded in the Congressional Record.
As a senator, Sununu voted against proceeding to an amendment that would have extended hate-crimes penalties to crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability and voted to prohibit joint adoptions in Washington, DC by couples not related by marriage or blood, a bill the Washington Post described as a push aimed at preventing gay couples from adopting children.
The attempt at pivoting away from a career spent voting against abortion rights mirrors how Republican New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte rapidly recalibrated her own record in the 2024 governor’s race. There Ayotte debuted a new public position on abortion—pledging no changes to state law while in office—while critics pointed to her long record voting against abortion rights. That effort was largely successful, and could be seen as a model Sununu is picking up in the 2026 election.
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