In New Hampshire, where increasing taxes has long been politically radioactive, the state’s high-profile U.S. Senate contest features Republican John E. Sununu portraying his Democratic rival, Representative Chris Pappas, as a relentless proponent of tax hikes.
“Chris Pappas voted to raise taxes 68 times,” declared Sununu, a former U.S. senator, during his primary night victory speech on September 8. “Every tax vote he’s made was to raise taxes.”
Upon requesting documentation for the 68 claimed votes from Sununu’s team, the campaign provided this dossier. An examination of the file reveals that the tally is heavily padded with procedural motions, distorts the actual intent of certain legislation, and counts votes that were backed by a vast consensus of congressional Republicans.
“Many of these claims go well beyond any reasonable view on what it means to vote to raise taxes,” observed Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.
A breakdown illustrates why the 68-vote figure is significantly exaggerated.
Procedural maneuvers inflate the total
The list compiled by Sununu’s campaign mixes final legislative passages with numerous procedural steps. While these parliamentary motions helped advance bills through the legislative pipeline, they did not inherently or literally “raise taxes.”
Although the record references 16 distinct bills, it averages more than three procedural votes for each piece of legislation to artificially inflate the final count.
Many targeted bills are only tangentially related to taxes
Among the contested legislation is the HEROES Act, a $3 trillion pandemic relief package introduced in 2020 that Pappas supported, though it never became law. The measure focused primarily on stimulus checks and increased COVID-19 spending. Regarding tax provisions, it expanded certain credits and deductions, providing financial relief to some taxpayers rather than penalizing them.
Sununu’s list also features the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2022, commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Pappas voted for this $1.2 trillion package dedicated to transportation and infrastructure. The campaign’s objection targets a single provision repealing a pandemic-era business retention tax credit, ignoring the massive scope of the rest of the bill.
Another supported measure, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is genuinely tax-focused. It raised corporate tax liabilities—particularly for large enterprises—while simultaneously offering clean energy tax incentives for homes and vehicles. The campaign flagged a provision boosting IRS staffing to modernize agency audits, but an increase in personnel does not constitute a tax increase by definition.
“These bills were not meant as revenue-raising bills,” explained Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Some of them did have tax and revenue provisions in them, but you have to use an expansive definition of ‘tax increase.’”
Conversely, the Sununu campaign includes the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which Pappas opposed. Designed to raise the debt limit, the Republican-led bill rolled back clean-energy tax credits enacted under President Joe Biden.
In this instance, the Sununu campaign criticizes Pappas for opposing a measure that would have eliminated certain tax breaks, while simultaneously counting votes that lower taxes elsewhere as tax hikes.
Similarly, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024—which Pappas and broad majorities of both parties backed—“would have cut taxes for many Americans and businesses and was paid for by cutting off employee retention credits, a program ripe with questionable and fraudulent claims,” Rosenberg noted. Because the legislation simultaneously cut taxes and closed a loophole, any vote cast on it could be spun as a tax increase.
Garrett Watson, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the inclusion of narrow, non-tax provisions severely undermines the credibility of the list. These factors indicate that the accusation is heavily distorted, he said.
Cherry-picked recordkeeping
While the campaign penalizes Pappas for voting to eliminate employee retention credits, it completely omits his vote in favor of the CARES Act of 2022, which established those very tax credits initially.
Ignores broad bipartisan support
Several measures on the list are criticized without acknowledging that virtually every House Republican voted alongside Democrats to pass them.
For example, the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2022 cleared the House 414–5. The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 passed 357–70, and the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 passed 417–3. Each of these bills enjoyed massive Republican backing.
Some cited measures didn’t impact tax rates at all
Pappas also opposed a non-binding resolution “expressing the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy.” Though passed primarily by Republicans, purely rhetorical resolutions carry zero practical policy or tax consequences.
PolitiFact reached out to the Sununu campaign for a response to these findings but received no reply.
Instances where Pappas did oppose tax cuts
Pappas did vote against former President Donald Trump’s major tax and spending package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, in 2025.
The comprehensive legislation touched on numerous tax policies affecting workers, tip earners, seniors, and the extension of previous Trump-era tax cuts.
The Sununu campaign counts six total votes against this package, including final passage and related budget resolutions.
Pappas’ office defended the vote, pointing to the bill’s Medicaid reductions, cuts to food stamps (SNAP), and the expiration of health insurance subsidies impacting millions.
Other limited tax measures on the list include votes on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which primarily impact high-income earners in heavily taxed Democratic states, alongside a couple of votes from Pappas’ tenure in the New Hampshire state legislature over two decades ago regarding an estate tax and a property tax measure.
Pappas’ record also features tax cuts
Sununu’s assertion that “every tax vote he’s made was to raise taxes” is factually incorrect.
Alongside backing various tax reliefs, Pappas supported a vote eliminating a tax on employer-sponsored health plans, backed an amendment to expand retirement plan tax credits for small businesses, and voted for the American Rescue Plan Act, which temporarily expanded child tax credits.
Furthermore, Pappas introduced legislation to prohibit states from taxing remote workers’ out-of-state income, sponsored a bill offering refundable energy-cost credits, and co-sponsored a measure granting a 10% tax credit to first-time homebuyers.
Our ruling
Sununu claimed that “Chris Pappas voted to raise taxes 68 times. Every tax vote he’s made was to raise taxes.”
While Pappas did oppose Trump’s tax package and cast a small number of votes against state tax cuts or for state taxes decades ago, the campaign’s congressional list is heavily inflated with procedural steps and unrelated bills that did not raise taxes. Furthermore, many of the cited bills garnered massive Republican support.
Because Pappas has a documented history of voting for and introducing tax cuts, the claim is inaccurate.
We rate the statement False.