Republicans have recruited a Sununu to run for Senate in New Hampshire after all.

Former Sen. John E. Sununu said Wednesday that he is running to reclaim the seat he held for a single term before Democrat Jeanne Shaheen ousted him in 2008. Shaheen is retiring next year.

“Maybe you’re surprised to hear that I’m running for the Senate again. I’m a bit surprised myself. Why would anyone subject themselves to everything going on there right now?” Sununu said in a launch video posted online Wednesday morning. “Well, somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”

The scion of a prominent GOP political dynasty, Sununu, 61, likely gives Republicans their best chance of flipping the seat after his brother, former Gov. Chris Sununu, rejected the party’s recruitment efforts for another cycle.

John E. Sununu brings access to his family’s fundraising machine and boasts close relationships with members of Senate GOP leadership, including Majority Leader John Thune. National and state Republicans consider him a strong candidate. Early polls put him ahead in the GOP primary and show him as the most competitive Republican against the Democratic front-runner, Rep. Chris Pappas.

Sununu has been in talks with the White House about his campaign and will soon meet with President Donald Trump about it, Blue Light News first reported. Trump’s endorsement would be critical in the GOP primary, even though the state’s broader electorate thrice rejected him for president.

But Sununu’s path to securing Trump’s nod — and the GOP nomination — is not clear.

Sununu has long opposed Trump, serving as a national co-chair of former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign and backing former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley for president in 2024. He penned an op-ed lambasting Trump as a “loser” ahead of New Hampshire’s presidential primary last year (Trump went on to win by 11 points). He later derided Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies as “completely inappropriate” through his position with the Democracy Defense Project, a bipartisan group focused on restoring public trust in election security.

And Sununu faces another former senator, Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire and mounting an unsuccessful bid to unseat Shaheen in 2014. Brown was the president’s first-term ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, and is now seeking his own political comeback by positioning himself as the more Trump-aligned candidate in the race. Another GOP candidate, state Sen. Dan Innis, has already dropped his bid and backed Sununu. He’s called on Brown to do the same, but the former ambassador is battling on.

“Anyone who thinks that a never Trump, corporate lobbyist who hasn’t won an election in a quarter century will resonate with today’s GOP primary voters is living in a different universe,” Brown said in a statement.

Sununu, who is also the son of former governor and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu, served three terms in the House before defeating then-Gov. Shaheen to win his Senate seat in 2002.

He starts with a polling advantage in the GOP primary. A University of New Hampshire survey from late September had him leading Brown 42 percent to 19 percent, with 28 percent undecided.

Early surveys also show him within striking distance of Pappas. The Democrat leads Sununu 49 percent to 43 percent in the UNH poll’s hypothetical general-election matchup; Pappas leads Brown by a wider margin of 52 percent to 37 percent. A survey from GOP-aligned co/efficient had Pappas leading Sununu by 3 percentage points and Brown by 10 points.

Sununu began publicly exploring a bid in September, after conversations with Thune and former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, then the chair of the GOP super PAC Senate Leadership Fund. Among those involved in his latest campaign is Paul Collins, a longtime adviser to the Sununu family.

Sununu could face challenges in his attempted comeback. While his family’s brand remains strong in New Hampshire, Sununu largely faded from elective politics after his 2008 defeat, ceding the spotlight to his younger brother. His post-congressional work on corporate boards has drawn him early fire from his opponents on both sides of the aisle. The state Democratic Party already has a website attacking Sununu for “selling out to corporations.”

And his past opposition to Trump could prove difficult to reconcile with the MAGA base, even though it could win him support among independents who can pull ballots in the GOP primary.

Sununu downplayed Trump’s importance in the Senate race in a WMUR interview last month, saying the contest “is going to be about New Hampshire.”

But Brown is working to weaponize Sununu’s repeated rejections of the president, even as he faces his own MAGA image problem after saying in 2021 that Trump “bears responsibility” for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.