This article was originally published by In-Depth New Hampshire on May 12, 2026. It is republished here under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Any views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Political Report or the Outsider Media Foundation. The article text is republished without substantive changes. Header image added by Independent Political Report.
As prominent New Hampshire Libertarian Jeremy Kauffman mounts an effort to dissolve the national Libertarian Party, he’s also dealing with a legal drama for his alleged racist behavior in a grocery store parking lot.
Kauffman, 41, is scheduled for trial in July on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing government administration stemming from an April 4 incident in which he allegedly tried to fight several people while hurling racist insults, according to Manchester Police reports.
Police were called to the Elm Street Market Basket parking lot around 2 p.m. on April 4 to deal with reports that a man hit another car in the parking lot with his car, fought with several people, and then went inside the store and continued yelling. One witness told police the suspect, later identified as Kauffman, immediately started making racist statements after the fender bender, and tried to fight people. When a bystander, who is Black and from Jamaica, walked by the incident, Kauffman reportedly directed his ire toward that man.
“[He] told him to ‘go back to Africa’ and began spouting racist slang and terms at him,” police report.
Kauffman reportedly continued to scream racist insults at people in the parking lot, according to police. Witnesses told police that Kauffman’s two young sons finally pulled their father away and dragged him inside the store.
Police soon encountered Kauffman inside the store, where he refused to give his name, and tried to pull away from officers when they attempted to detain him, according to the report.
Contacted this week, Kauffman doubled down on the incident.
“Free Staters want to end qualified immunity so that police who perform illegitimare [sic] kidnappings suffer criminal consequences,” Kauffman said via text message.
When asked what led up to the incident, Kauffman used racist logic to blame minorities.
“Low IQ schizophrenic Africans who scream at kids in parking lots should be deported from New Hampshire. We shouldn’t punish decent men who stand up to them,” Kauffman wrote.
Police reports state that the children’s mother was called to the grocery store parking lot to take the boys home. She was also informed that the Division for Children, Youth & Families would be sent a report about the incident.
Kauffman is no stranger to racism and other forms of bigotry. The 2022 Libertarian candidate for Senate was kicked off the Free State Project Board in 2023 after he refused to stop posting racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ content on the FSP social media accounts.
His latest political campaign sees Kauffman running for the national Libertarian Party committee chair on a single-issue platform: He’s promising to dissolve the national Libertarian Party. According to his campaign website, the national party is a failure that has never elected a national candidate, is hemorrhaging members and money, and is ultimately hurting the libertarian movement.
“Being the largest spoiler is not an achievement. Ballot access without a path to office is a chance for theater kids to play at politics, not a serious political effort,” the website states.
If Kauffman is successful in ending the national party, the state party organizations would remain in place and be free to pursue their own agendas, according to his campaign. Kauffman is the current chair of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, which featured state Rep. Travis Corcoran (R-Weare) at its party convention earlier this year. Corcoran is currently facing possible sanction by the House for his most recent anti-Semitic and racist social media posts.
Kauffman is being prosecuted by the Manchester City Solicitor’s Office, which did not respond to a request for comment. According to court records, the city filed a notice it intends to seek Class A penalties in the case, meaning that Kauffman faces up to a year in prison.
With the case scheduled for a July 6 trial, Kauffman should still be able to attend the Libertarian National Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan which is being held May 21 to May 25.
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