Is America’s Crummiest Political Dynasty About to Bite the Dust?

TBR Midterms HQ - Andy Borowitz - Sep 20, 2026 Paid

Welcome to The Borowitz Report’s newest premium feature, TBR Midterms HQ. Between now and November, we’ll offer deep dives into the midterm races you need to know about—and make a few predictions.

Today we’ll look at a state that’s crucial to the Democrats’ bid for a Senate majority: New Hampshire.

For a country that claims to be a republic, the USA has long been a sucker for political dynasties. But once you get past the Adamses and the Roosevelts, the families worthy of our reverence get thin on the ground.

Let’s start with the two presidents named Harrison: William Henry and his grandson Benjamin. Benjamin Harrison’s economic “policies” set the stage for the Panic of 1893, one of the worst financial calamities in American history. He could have saved the country much grief if he had followed the example of his grandfather, who graciously died 31 days after his Inauguration.

Then there were the Bushes. (I’m sorry to remind you about them, but for the purposes of my argument, I must.) Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut spawned our 41st president, George H.W. Bush, who begat our 43rd, George W. Bush. As if reenacting a Greek tragedy, the younger George seemed determined to outdo his dad in failure. While H.W. drove the US economy into a garden-variety recession, W. presided over The Great Recession. And while H.W. led the nation into war, W. started what was, until February of this year, the stupidest military conflict in US history.

W.’s brother, former Florida Governor Jeb “Please Clap” Bush, got shellacked by Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries, which might explain why his son, George P. Bush, failed to mention Jeb (or any other Bush) in a campaign video when he ran for Texas Attorney General in 2022, opting to praise Trump instead. Despite this extravagant display of obsequiousness, Trump endorsed his opponent, the oft-indicted Ken Paxton, who romped to victory. After four generations of elected Bushes, this particular national nightmare seemed to be over.

As for the Kennedys, the less said about their current representative, the better.

Given that scions of political dynasties so often embody the law of diminishing returns with disastrous consequences, it’s past time to put a fork in this pernicious form of nepotism. That’s why this year’s Senate race in New Hampshire is so important. Granite State voters have a chance to show their patriotism by plunging a stake through the most mediocre political dynasty in US history: the Sununus.

If you’re not familiar with the patriarch of this dubious clan, former Governor John H. Sununu, you’re not alone: neither, apparently, was Ronald Reagan, whose hilarious struggle to pronounce his name in a 1982 campaign ad is preserved for our entertainment in these epic outtakes:

((Sia: Sorry, paid premium won't allow copying videos. Suffice it to say that Reagan struggled to say Sununu correctly multiple times until blurting out "Why does his name have to be Sununu?". LOL.

For the record, it is pronounced "SUH-new-new", not the rhyming "sue-NEW-new" with wrong emphasis and wrong beginning. It should be First syllable emphasis - "SUH" as in SUpper, then "new new", NOT "sue" as in the girl's name))

After nineteen or so tries Ronnie must have nailed “Sununu,” because John wound up winning the governor’s race. Six years later, in a historic collaboration between two woefully low-wattage political dynasties, Sununu masterminded George H.W. Bush’s victory in New Hampshire’s presidential primary. As a reward, Bush named him White House chief of staff, allowing Sununu to treat the entire nation to his bespoke blend of arrogance and incompetence.

Sununu was reputedly the genius who convinced Bush to betray his own “no new taxes” campaign pledge, drawing the ire of GOP conservatives. Cluelessly handing live ammo to his enemies, Sununu availed himself of Air Force jets whenever he got an itch to travel, thus blazing a trail for future frequent fliers like Kash Patel. This practice made him the laughingstock of the Bush White House, no mean feat for an administration that included Dan Quayle. Such missteps (combined with his richly-deserved status as the most despised man in Washington) sealed Sununu’s fate: Bush fired him in 1991, reportedly on the advice of future nepo-president George W. Bush.


Will Rogers’s famous quote about never meeting a man he didn’t like inspired this anti-Sununu fashion accessory in the late 1980s.

You might have thought that Sununu’s unceremonious axing would have spelled the end of this ninth-tier political dynasty, but sadly, that wasn’t the case. In 2002, his son, the confusingly middle-initialed John E. Sununu, bested Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the race for New Hampshire’s open US Senate seat. Unfortunately for fans of obeying the law, he did so with the help of a criminal conspiracy. A coordinated effort to jam the phone lines of call centers the Shaheen campaign needed to get out their vote contributed to his slim margin of victory. Two conspirators went to prison for this scheme, while Sununu went to Washington—but only briefly. In 2008, without the benefit of illegal phone-jamming, he lost in a rematch with Shaheen.

(Sia: FTR, Jean Shaheen was a great governor and senator, unlike the original John Sununu, his son John E. or the other son, Chris, who currently SUCKS)

Eighteen years later, the one-term senator has returned like a stubborn STD, asking Granite Staters to give him another chance. Is Sununu offering any new ideas that he didn’t have when voters kicked him to the curb nearly two decades ago? Alas, he is: in a TV appearance in April, he declared, “I certainly support a work requirement for able-bodied Medicare recipients."

Although New Hampshire’s state motto is “Live Free or Die,” most of its residents would prefer to delay the second option as long as possible. For that reason, Sununu’s groundbreaking proposal didn’t go down too well, especially among those over 65 who were under the correct impression that there are no work requirements for Medicare—and never have been.

Scrambling to contain the damage, the hapless Sununu took to X.com to claim he misspoke: he meant work requirements for Medicaid, not Medicare. (Maybe he was inspired by yet another titan of this political dynasty, his charisma-free brother, Chris Sununu, who, as governor of New Hampshire in 2018, praised the Trump administration for imposing work requirements on Medicaid recipients.)

Clearly, John E. Sununu is hoping that, once voters realize that he just wants to punish the poor and not the elderly, all will be forgiven. But Sununu’s “clarification” on X only made matters worse, because it raised two troubling questions about him. First, does New Hampshire really want a senator who confuses Medicare and Medicaid? And second, what kind of idiot declares he misspoke by reposting an X post that includes the original video of his gaffe—thus amplifying it?

Full disclosure: I live in New Hampshire. And I’m counting on my fellow Granite Staters to return this last and least of the Sununus to richly-deserved obscurity. Much more is at stake than one Senate seat. We need to consign the entire concept of political dynasties to the dustbin of history. Especially before Don Jr. gets any ideas.

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Sia: Full disclosure, I also live in NH. I never voted for an effing Sununu and never will!

The Sununus have been collectively TERRIBLE representatives in NH. Even when I lived in various places in MA and was once a MA Republican (very different than most national Republicans), I was well aware of how awful they were from reading newspapers and watching Boston TV stations that also serve NH as well as getting service from NH news on WMUR.

FTR, Borowitz isn't only a smart, sarcastic satirical writer, he is also a dead serious political writer who employs plenty of snark in his commentary. He began his political parody career in the late 90s. In 2001, he began "The Borrowitz Report" and his writing career took off.

He is an accomplished Harvard graduate who began his comedy career writing scripts for popular TV programs, then co-created "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" with his 1st wife. He co-produced the Academy award nominated film "Pleasantville", then appeared in a Woody Allen flick, "Melinda and Melinda" and in "Marie and Bruce", and in the film "Fired". Stand-up comedy clubs went crazy for him and he head-lined several major comedy clubs for years.

He currently resides in Hanover, NH where he relocated during 2020 pandemic. I've never met him, but hope to run into him someday.

Okay, so now my fan-girl-fawning is done. LOL.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I do tend to get sooo distracted and then racing around off topic, especially when I'm wicked tired and can't sleep. My Adderall has long worn off, just making the mile-a-minute mental acrobatics more pronounced.