Jeanne Shaheen

Jeanne Shaheen
Official portrait, 2021
United States Senator
from New Hampshire
Assumed office
January 3, 2009
Serving with Maggie Hassan
Preceded byJohn Sununu
Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee
Assumed office
September 27, 2023
Preceded byBen Cardin
Ranking Member of the Senate Small Business Committee
In office
April 2, 2015 – February 6, 2018
Preceded byBen Cardin
Succeeded byBen Cardin
78th Governor of New Hampshire
In office
January 9, 1997 – January 9, 2003
Preceded bySteve Merrill
Succeeded byCraig Benson
Member of the New Hampshire Senate
from the 21st district
In office
December 5, 1990 – December 4, 1996
Preceded byFranklin Torr
Succeeded byKatie Wheeler
Personal details
Born
Cynthia Jeanne Bowers

(1947-01-28) January 28, 1947 (age 77)
St. Charles, Missouri, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
William Shaheen
(m. 1972)
Children3
EducationShippensburg University (BA)
University of Mississippi (MSS)
Signature
WebsiteSenate website

Cynthia Jeanne Shaheen (/ˈn ʃəˈhn/ JEEN shə-HEEN; née Bowers, born January 28, 1947) is an American politician and retired educator serving as the senior United States senator from New Hampshire, a seat she has held since January 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, she also served as the 78th governor of New Hampshire from 1997 to 2003. Shaheen is the first woman elected as both a governor and a U.S. senator,[1] and the first woman elected governor of New Hampshire.

After serving two terms in the New Hampshire Senate, Shaheen was elected governor in 1996 and reelected in 1998 and 2000. In 2002, she unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate against Republican nominee John E. Sununu. She served as director of the Harvard Institute of Politics before resigning to run for the U.S. Senate again in the 2008 election, defeating Sununu in a rematch. She is the dean of New Hampshire's congressional delegation, serving in Congress since 2009.

Shaheen became the first Democratic senator from New Hampshire since John A. Durkin, who was defeated in 1980. In 2014, she became the second Democrat from New Hampshire to be reelected to the Senate and the first since Thomas J. McIntyre in 1972. She was reelected to a third term in 2020, defeating Republican nominee Bryant Messner.

  1. ^ Katharine Q. Seelye (January 1, 2013). "From Congress to Halls of State, in New Hampshire, Women Rule". The New York Times.