New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Stephen Villee is expected to qualify for the November general election ballot in part due to petitioning support from an independent group of Libertarians who are seeking to establish a new state organization.
The group, which said it has since adopted the name Granite State Libertarians, told Independent Political Report this week that it filed 3,368 validated nomination papers for Villee with the New Hampshire Secretary of State, exceeding the minimum required for gubernatorial candidates pursuing ballot access through petitioning. The group also confirmed that the filing was accepted by state officials and Villee will appear on the ballot as a Libertarian candidate.
Under New Hampshire law, gubernatorial candidates petitioning onto the general election ballot need at least 3,000 valid signatures, with 1,500 coming from each of the state’s two congressional districts. The group previously told IPR that the campaign collected just over 4,500 raw signatures toward that effort before submitting them to local officials for validation. It also set a $40,000 fundraising goal for the effort and petitioned in more than 145 New Hampshire communities.
Villee pursued the petitioning route after unsuccessfully seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire earlier this year, despite the organization having formally backed him for governor during the 2024 election cycle. In his first run, he received 16,202 votes, or roughly 2 percent statewide.
However, delegates at the organization’s March convention instead backed “None of the Above,” choosing to skip the gubernatorial race. Following that, Villee said he would seek the support of another party before continuing his campaign with assistance from the independent Libertarian group.
Villee has also said one of his campaign goals this year is to reach the 4 percent threshold that would allow a Libertarian political organization to qualify for recognized party status under New Hampshire law. For Granite State Libertarians, reaching that threshold would help put it in a stronger position as it works to establish itself as a separate organization and gain recognition as the national Libertarian Party’s New Hampshire affiliate.
The Libertarian National Committee voted in May to disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, and the national party’s Judicial Committee unanimously upheld that decision following a hearing earlier this month. As of this article’s publication, the Libertarian Party has no recognized New Hampshire affiliate.
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