New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Stephen Villee has completed his petition drive for the November general election with help from an independent group of Libertarians seeking to establish a new state organization after the national party voted to disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire.
In a brief campaign update published on July 31, Villee said that he had submitted all of his nomination papers to local election officials for validation. New Hampshire Libertarians, the group supporting his ballot access effort, similarly reported around the same time that it had finished collecting signatures and was in the process of distributing petitions to more than 145 towns and cities across the state.
Under New Hampshire law, candidates for governor seeking ballot access through nomination papers need at least 3,000 valid signatures, including 1,500 from each of the state’s two congressional districts. New Hampshire Libertarians had initially aimed to collect 5,000 raw signatures to provide a cushion for those that could ultimately be rejected. A member of the petitioning effort told Independent Political Report that the group ultimately collected just over 4,500.
With the petition drive finished, local Supervisors of the Checklist have until August 26 to certify Villee’s signatures. He will then have until September 2 to file his certified nomination papers with the New Hampshire Secretary of State.
Villee previously represented the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire in the 2024 gubernatorial election, receiving 16,202 votes, or roughly 2 percent of the statewide total, and sought its support again this cycle. However, delegates at the party’s March convention backed “None of the Above” rather than endorse him, prompting Villee to continue his campaign independent of the organization, though he was initially unsure how he would seek to appear on the ballot.
In the months following the convention, Villee’s gubernatorial bid picked up support from the independent group of Libertarians, which raised money and organized petitioners on his behalf to place him on the ballot as a Libertarian. Since the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is not recognized as a political party under state law, Villee is free to seek ballot access through petitioning using the designation even without the organization’s endorsement. New Hampshire currently recognizes only the Republican and Democratic parties.
To gain that recognition, a political organization must receive at least 4 percent of the vote in the preceding general election for governor or U.S. Senate. Villee has said one of his campaign goals is to reach that threshold this year, allowing a Libertarian political organization to again qualify for recognition in New Hampshire.
The independent group has also said that any funds remaining after the petition drive will be used to help launch a new organization representing Libertarians in the state. That separate effort follows the Libertarian National Committee’s May decision to disaffiliate the existing New Hampshire party. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has since appealed the decision, with a hearing before the national party’s Judicial Committee scheduled for August 11.
For the independent group, a strong enough showing by Villee to lead to the formal recognition of an organization would also put it in a stronger position to make its case before national Libertarians to become its new New Hampshire affiliate, assuming the Judicial Committee ultimately upholds the existing party’s disaffiliation.
In addition to announcing the completion of his own effort, Villee said he expects Constitution Party U.S. Senate candidate Ed Laplante and Classical Liberal Party state House candidate Daryl D’Angelo to also have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Neither campaign has publicly announced whether it successfully completed its respective petition drive, making Villee’s remarks the only public indication that either effort may have collected enough signatures. Laplante similarly needs 3,000 valid signatures statewide, including at least 1,500 from each congressional district, while D’Angelo needs 150 to qualify in the flotorial Hillsborough District 37.
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