New Hampshire Libertarians Fight Losing Battle To Stay In National Party

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepth NH

A more subdued than normal Jeremy Kauffman sat through last week’s appeal hearing in front of the Libertarian National Committee’s Judicial Committee as he leads the fight to get the New Hampshire Libertarian Party back into the fold.

But even after Kauffman used his indoor voice, the Judicial Committee still voted to uphold the disaffiliation 7 to 0. Judicial Committee Chair Ken Moellman announced the result Wednesday, and said the full written opinion will be released next month.

Kauffman and the rest of his controversial New Hampshire cohort were disaffiliated by the national committee during the spring convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The NHLP’s obnoxious and racist social media postings, as well as the group’s decision to endorse President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, were cited as cause for the disaffiliation.

Kauffman told the Judicial Committee members during the Zoom hearing last week that the move to oust him and the New Hampshire party from the national committee is an illustration of the infighting that prevents Libertarians from winning more elections.

“It’s not gonna end here, it only will further tear the party apart,” Kauffman said. “Every convention is a fight to kick out states so a specific faction can control the party.”

New Hampshire attorney Ian Huyett, representing the LHNP, told Judicial Committee members that the LNC’s disaffiliation vote violated party rules and the Roberts Rules of Order by not giving Kauffman and his crew proper notice beforehand.

“They need to have better notice than they got,” Huyett said.

But LNC Secretary Jonathan McGee told the committee Kauffman and his associates had been warned twice in the past year they risked censure by the party for its toxic social media. Around the time of the 2025 LNC, the national committee and the NHLP entered into an agreement to avoid the censure, he said. The New Hampshire party pledged to stop its racist and inflammatory online trolling, but that pledge did not last, McGee said.

“At some point after they went back to their old ways,” McGee said.

Another censure warning issued late summer didn’t stop NHLP’s toxic social media, McGee said.

NHLP’s social media became nationally notorious over the past several years. There are the death threats, like the ones against Vice President Kamala Harris and former Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky. Then there’s the stream of open racism, anti-semitism, and homophobia from the NHLP on social media. A tweet blaming Jewish people for the 9/11 terror attacks, for example, was cited during the disaffiliation vote.

Kauffman claims that the NHLP’s offensive and racist and homophobic social media brand is a winning strategy for Libertarians. It’s just a strategy that the national party does not understand, according to Kauffman, who ran for LNC chair during the May convention on a platform to dissolve the LNC.

“I go to the mat every day, all of the time, for what’s right and what’s true. And you guys, you freaks, see someone who can do things that you can’t, and it makes you so angry and so bitter, you are loser apes who can’t stand to see someone with abilities that you don’t have,” Kauffman said during his LNC campaign speech. “You are so congenitally anti-everything, that when you see someone with something, who can do anything, you melt down. And I am here to cleanse the party of you losers.”

It was not a winning message.

But the edgelording aside, NHLP’s vote to endorse Trump in the 2024 election over Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver counted as a clear violation of national party rules. Kauffman pleaded a kind of innocence on that count, saying he thought the Trump endorsement was a bad idea.

“I did have some concerns specifically because of the things that are happening now,” Kauffman told the committee.

Kauffman had just taken a position on the NHLP’s executive committee in November of 2024, and was ineligible to vote on the endorsement. However, he also personally endorsed Trump on social media.

“I was also very clear that was a personal statement of mine,” Kauffman said.

Huyett claimed that the NHLP’s endorsement of Trump was not technically an endorsement of Trump, since local affiliates do not have that authority. The NHLP endorsement happened, and didn’t happen under Huyett’s argument.

“There was an endorsement vote by the board, but we don’t actually think the executive board had the authority to endorse a candidate,” Huyett said.

With the Judicial Committee’s vote to affirm the LNC’s disaffiliation, New Hampshire still does not have a Libertarian party connected to the national organization. While Kauffman remains the head of the disaffiliated NHLP, other Libertarians are free to form a new state chapter inline with the LNC.

Kauffman has signaled that he and his NHLP partners plan to take the fight to court. To date, they’ve raised $3,495 for their legal defense fund.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.