State Sen. Dan Innis launches bid for U.S. Senate, setting primary race with Scott Brown

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By CHARLOTTE MATHERLY

Monitor staff

Published: 07-16-2025 12:10 PM

Modified: 07-16-2025 12:37 PM


New Hampshire hasn’t sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 2010, when now-Gov. Kelly Ayotte was elected to serve there.

Dan Innis, a conservative state senator from Bradford, wants to turn the tide.

“I don’t think they’re representing New Hampshire values all that well,” Innis said in an interview. “We’re a state that’s about small government, keeping taxes low, keeping government out of our business. I’ve continued to carry that message as a state senator, and it’s a message that I want to take to Washington, D.C.”

Innis announced a run for U.S. Senate on Wednesday, seeking to claim Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s seat when she retires next year.

In his third term as a state senator, Innis represents 22 cities and towns north and west of Concord, including Franklin, Boscawen and Warner.

He lives in Bradford, where he runs Trail’s End Farm, and he teaches hospitality management and marketing at UNH. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014.

Innis pitches himself as a pro-Trump conservative who supports the president’s immigration policies and “brilliant” tariffs imposed on Canada, Mexico and other countries.

“I know some people find his personality difficult. I understand that, and I respect that,” Innis said. “What people should look at is the actual policies, and are they working? And they are.”

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He will compete in the state GOP primary against Scott Brown, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who now lives in Rye. Brown ran for Senate in New Hampshire and lost to Shaheen in 2014. He is now campaigning on a platform similar to Innis: support for President Trump.

Innis, who has run two inns and a hotel on the Seacoast, said his previous business and state government experience sets him apart from his Republican opponent.

“That experience has really put me close to the voters and to the people of this state, not to mention dealing with thousands of students at UNH every year that have also helped me to connect with, really, the core values of our constituents in this great state,” Innis said. “I think I’m better able to represent those values in Washington, D.C. than is Scott Brown.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, who represents the state’s second district, is also running for Shaheen’s Senate seat and has received her endorsement.

For Innis, “nothing comes to mind” when asked where he differs from Trump.

A former dean at UNH, Innis denounced state funding cuts to the University System of New Hampshire earlier this year. But Innis supported Trump as his administration sought to pull funding from universities over their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and their handling of antisemitism allegations.

“I’ve been in higher ed for 34 years, and I’ve watched it change, and it has really moved in a direction that I think is inconsistent with a lot of what the American public would like to see,” Innis said. He called colleges’ DEI initiatives “almost reverse discrimination.”

Beyond backing Trump in Congress, Innis said he wants to “leverage the private sector to work even more efficiently” by reducing business regulations and implementing tax credits.

He also wants to carry New Hampshire’s message of small government to the federal level.

“We need to right-size our federal government,” Innis said. “We need to try to keep taxes down, and we’ve got to balance this budget and start reducing the debt, or it’ll crush us.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s regional press secretary, Nick Puglia, has supported both Brown and Innis in their challenges to Pappas.

“Dan Innis knows that Chris Pappas is out-of-touch with the day-to-day needs of Granite Staters, and that in 2026, New Hampshire will finally elect a Republican U.S. Senator that will fight to lower taxes and keep New Hampshire safe,” Puglica said.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.