EXCLUSIVE — Republican hopes of flipping a competitive New Hampshire Senate seat could be in jeopardy with the possible entry of a third-party candidate who tells the Washington Examiner he’s prepared to mount a spoiler campaign to amplify his anti-technocratic message.
Aaron Day, an entrepreneur and chair of an advocacy group that promotes liberty, is no stranger to being a political disruptor. He garnered nearly 18,000 votes, or 2.4%, in the 2016 Senate race and claims credit for GOP incumbent Kelly Ayotte losing to now-Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) by just 1,000 votes.
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In this November’s midterm elections, Republican front-runner John E. Sununu is facing Scott Brown — both former GOP senators — for the GOP nomination to take on presumptive Democratic nominee Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in the blue-leaning state.
“In the past, I ran to be a spoiler. I’ll be clear: if my name is on the ballot, Sununu won’t win,” Day said. “If I get 2% or 3% of the vote, that’s it for him.”
In a more than 30-minute phone interview with the Washington Examiner, Day described his consideration for a third-party run as a crusade to combat an existential threat to global society and “free will itself” that’s being exacerbated by AI. For the last three years, Day has been focused on fighting technocracy, a nearly century-old ideological movement where scientists and engineers control political institutions and individual freedoms.
His mission, should he choose to run, remains the same from his Senate campaign a decade ago: undermine the GOP nominee to get his point across. But his purpose for doing so has changed drastically from his past desire to reshape the state’s Republican Party.
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“I still naively thought in 2016 that I could affect things politically, and I actually thought that there was a fundamental difference between the two parties and that there was the potential to influence the Republican Party from a liberty perspective,” Day said. “I don’t believe that at all anymore.”
Day plans to make a final decision on a campaign in the coming month. He characterized his current interest level as “very strongly considering,” has several hundred people who’ve signed up for an email list, a “handful” of wannabe volunteers, and has been encouraged to run by “MAGA types” who are “very frustrated by the Sununu family influence.”
The Brown campaign declined to comment.
The Sununu campaign said Sununu and Pappas were the only viable general election candidates. Sununu leads Brown in the polls in a contentious rivalry and narrowly trails Pappas in head-to-head matchups compared to Brown’s double-digit deficit to Pappas.
“New Hampshire voters know that just Chris Pappas and John Sununu have a chance to be U.S. senator, and only John Sununu will be an independent voice for Granite Staters who will always put New Hampshire first,” Sununu spokesman Mike Schrimpf said in a statement.
Nonpartisan election forecasters give Democrats the slight edge in the Granite State, just one of several competitive Senate races in the 2026 cycle as Republicans seek to maintain their three-seat majority. Flipping New Hampshire would ease pressure on maintaining toss-up seats held by Republicans in Maine and North Carolina.
Establishment-backed Sununu, the brother of former New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, lost reelection to a second Senate term in 2008 to Shaheen. Brown, who aligns with President Donald Trump’s base, was ousted from a Massachusetts Senate seat in 2012 by now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and lost in New Hampshire to Shaheen in 2014.
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The Pappas campaign declined to comment.
Day’s crusade against a ‘technocratic surveillance state’
Day has “never voted for Trump,” but he’s also “never voted for a Democrat.”
He branded Pappas a “party line technocrat,” Sununu a “stereotypical technocrat,” and held back on labels for Brown because he “doesn’t have a chance.” Day took particular issue with Sununu, whom he accused of long promoting a government surveillance state through supporting laws like the Patriot Act and for Congress passing REAL ID requirements under his tenure, though Sununu opposed the REAL ID requirements and later pushed for stronger civil liberty protections under the Patriot Act.
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During the interview, Day repeatedly invoked the viral clip from HBO’s The Newsroom television series when actor Jeff Daniels, playing a TV news host, rattles off a list of stats during a public forum on why the character believes “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore, but it could be.”
“He made the point that you can’t improve unless you understand and accept the reality of the current situation. We are living in a massive state of denial,” Day said. “And the massive state of denial that we’re in is… this technocratic surveillance state, which is growing unchecked under Trump.”
Under Trump last year, Congress passed the GENIUS Act, the country’s first major cryptocurrency legislation, which Day also took issue with.
In 2018, Day lost in the Libertarian Party primary for New Hampshire governor in a bid “to expose corporate-government collusion” and in 2024 ran as a write-in Republican candidate for president to highlight perceived threats posed by central bank digital currencies, such as if the Federal Reserve would issue a digital currency in addition to physical money.
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Day considers his potential Senate run as an extension of his presidential campaign to raise awareness against such digital currencies, known as CBDCs.
“Our rights, our privacy, have been routinely compromised, and Sununu has been at the heart of this,” Day said. “Because of the urgency of the matter, and because of the importance of the Senate race, and because of Sununu’s involvement in passing some of the most pro-technocracy legislation ever, I think that this is going to be an opportunity for me to substantially raise awareness on this issue.”
