Two former senators looking to return face steep odds and seniority shuffle

Two Senate candidates this year are hoping to do what only a handful of others have done in the last century: return to their old jobs in the upper chamber.

Former Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) are both running to win reelection to the Senate after absences.

In Brown’s case, it’s a short absence. The Ohio Democrat was defeated in his 2024 reelection by Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) in what has become an increasingly Republican state. Brown, who had won three terms in the Senate, was defeated as President Trump won back the White House.

Sununu has been absent from the Senate for a longer time and was in the Senate for a shorter period than Brown.

He won election to the Senate in 2002 but was defeated in his reelection bid in 2008 by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in what was a wave election for Democrats on the back of then-President Obama’s sweeping victory. Shaheen is now retiring from the seat in a state that has grown tougher for Republican candidates to win.

Both Brown and Sununu, if they do win reelection, will face seldom-charted procedural territory upon being sworn in.

In a body where seniority matters more than almost anything, both former senators would likely return as functional first-term lawmakers to the chamber.

It could be a strange feeling. Two years ago, Brown was the chair of the Senate Banking Committee and would have been in the running to lead two other panels, if he had chosen them, upon winning.

Sununu, in contrast, ranked near the bottom in his committees when he left office in 2009 after serving his single term.

Yet if he does win back his old seat, he will also make history by becoming one of the few senators to serve nonconsecutive terms. He’d also have the longest gap in between terms: 18 years.

Neither the Brown nor Sununu campaigns responded to requests for comment on how the candidates would approach returning to the Senate without seniority.

Since 1913, when senators began to be elected by the popular vote, rather than by state legislatures, only 16 people have been reelected to the Senate after previously being voted out. A few more have been reelected after resigning for some reason, like former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who resigned in 1998 and was reelected in 2010.

Whether senators who leave the Senate and come back are entitled to their old seniority has been a question for the whole century.

In 1954, former Sen. Alben Barkley (D-Ky.) was reelected after stepping down in 1949 to become vice president. Barkley was given his same committee assignments and treated as more senior than other first-term lawmakers upon his return, according to a New York Times article in 1955. Former Sen. Joseph O’Mahoney (D-Wyo.) received the same treatment that year.

But in more recent decades, the precedent has been for a senator to be relegated to freshman status, or close to it, when returning.

Former Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), like Brown, had been the top Democrat on the Budget Committee when he retired in 2001. He was reelected two years later but did not get priority office space or committee assignments. That was a surprise to Lautenberg, who had reportedly expected his seniority to be considered after he came out of retirement to replace a scandal-ridden senator on the ballot.

Coats, the most recent senator to make a comeback, was assigned different committees upon returning in 2011 from what he served on previously.

In other cases, senators who came back returned to a committee at a lower rank: former Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) left the chamber to be vice president in 1964 while he ranked fourth on the Senate Government Operations committee, and he returned to that committee in 1971 ranked ninth.

Former Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) lost reelection in 1986 while ranked sixth on the Commerce Committee; he managed a comeback two years later and returned to the Commerce Committee, but ranked eighth.

If either Brown or Sununu win their elections, they would most likely follow that pattern. But first, they have to get through November.

Brown, on paper, probably has the best odds of returning. He’s in a tight race against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio).

Sununu faces Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) for an open seat that could be a GOP pickup opportunity.

Still, while the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the Brown-Husted battle in Ohio as a toss-up, it rates the race in New Hampshire as “lean Democrat.”

New Hampshire is not a solidly blue state, however. Its state Legislature has flipped between Democratic and Republican control throughout recent years, and it is now led by a Republican in Gov. Kelly Ayotte.