New Hampshire’s race to fill Jeanne Shaheen’s Senate seat has child care costs emerging as a defining issue, with candidates from both parties already staking out positions ahead of the November election.
Shaheen announced her retirement after serving in the Senate since 2009, a career that began with the state Senate and then the governor’s office back in 1997. Before leaving, she helped Monadnock-region child care programs lock in Northern Border Regional Commission funding. She told the New Hampshire Bulletin she hopes whoever takes her seat will “continue to think about ways in which to support child care” and “recognize the importance of the early childhood years and how somebody does later in life.”
Four candidates are running. Democrats Chris Pappas and Karishma Manzur on one side. Republicans John E. Sununu and Scott Brown on the other.
Pappas, who represents New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House, has been the most aggressive on this issue. On April 3, he visited Merrimack Valley Day Care in Concord, sitting down with Democratic state Rep. Mary Jane Wallner and Executive Director Marianne Barter. He didn’t just show up for a photo. He heard directly from workers about what they say Washington isn’t giving them.
The shortage isn’t a policy abstraction for families in this state. Licensed care slots in rural areas don’t meet demand, and providers can’t offer wages competitive enough to retain qualified staff. Waitlists stretch for months. That’s the reality Pappas walked into.
He framed it plainly in economic terms. “We have a cost-of-living crisis, and we have to figure out how to make things less expensive and ensure that families get what they need,” he said. Child care, he argued, connects directly to the state’s economic health: investing in the workforce that runs these programs grows the economy across New Hampshire and nationally.
“His campaign has released what he calls a blueprint to support child care workers and expand access to services. He described affordability as a” central mechanism, calling it a “linchpin of how we create a more affordable economy” for working families.
Data from Child Care Aware of America and the New Hampshire Child Care Advisory Council have long documented the cost burden on families in the state, where annual center-based infant care can exceed $17,000. That figure puts New Hampshire among the most expensive states in the country for child care relative to median family income.
On the Republican side, John E. Sununu is trying to reclaim the seat he held before Shaheen won it. He previously served in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. His campaign hasn’t released the kind of detailed child care platform Pappas has, at least not at this point in the race.
Scott Brown is also competing for the Republican nomination. Brown represented Massachusetts in the Senate before later working in New Hampshire politics. He hasn’t detailed a specific child care position publicly either.
Manzur, the Democratic candidate alongside Pappas, is running on a progressive platform that includes expanded early childhood access, though she hasn’t received the same level of attention on this specific issue as Pappas has so far.
What’s driving the conversation isn’t just politics. New Hampshire’s licensed child care capacity hasn’t kept pace with demand, and the workforce that runs the sector is underpaid and shrinking. Whether the candidates who don’t currently hold office can close the credibility gap with Pappas on this issue will likely depend on whether they’re willing to put specifics on the table before November.
Shaheen’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment before publication.
Written by
Dartmouth Independent StaffContributing writer at The Dartmouth Independent
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