The New Hampshire State House, where tradition often reigns supreme, is scarcely more technologically savvy than a couple of still cameras streaming hearings to YouTube.
But like a lot of places these days, political power — and attention — there is increasingly shaped by what’s happening online.
And while plenty of New Hampshire lawmakers maintain busy Facebook feeds and X accounts, perhaps no public official better exemplifies the high speed, high volume, digital-ready approach to politics than Republican Rep. Joe Sweeney.
As the House’s deputy majority leader, Sweeney’s job is to make sure fellow Republicans show up in Concord and support caucus priorities. In many ways, it’s about as old-fashioned as political work gets in 2026. And to see Sweeney in action is to observe a politician who still embraces plenty of his party’s traditional priorities.
“Let the voters see that we oppose income taxes now and forever,” Sweeney proclaimed from the House floor earlier this month.
But Sweeney didn’t stop at merely pledging to oppose income taxes inside the walls of the State House. Soon after, he also posted the video of himself doing so to social media. Sweeney isn’t the first — or only — state politician bent on cultivating an online presence. But his position of power in the Republican Party means he is well-positioned to amplify what he chooses. It could be AI-generated graphics promoting nuclear power, photoshopped images supporting ICE, or Sweeney himself talking straight into a camera.
According to Sweeney, to succeed on social media in politics, it’s best to keep messages short, sharp — and sometimes trollish.
“It's kind of this perverse incentive to present that sort of profile online, because that's what's going to get people engaged,” Sweeney said in an interview last week.
Politics as personal
At 32, Sweeney came of age in politics and on the internet. He started earning paychecks for political work in 2012, on the campaign of former Congressman Charlie Bass. Sweeney was a University of New Hampshire student at the time, and won election to the New Hampshire House that same year. Back then, he courted voters on social media with an earnestness that seems far removed from the politics of 2026, welcoming voters of all stripes to reach out and support his candidacy.
“I am running as a Republican, but I promise to represent all of my Salem constituents when elected,” a baby-faced Sweeney said in a YouTube video from that race.
A lot has changed for Sweeney since then. He’s now a top Republican lawmaker in Concord, vice chair of Salem’s town council, and also operates Granite Solutions, a political advocacy and fundraising group.
According to filings with the state, Granite Solutions’ purpose is “Electing Fiscal Conservatives in New Hampshire.” It essentially operates as Sweeney's personal PAC, raising money, running ads, pushing policies, and urging lawmakers to sign pledges.
As New Hampshire PACs go, Granite Solutions is not exactly flush with cash: It’s reported raising about $60,000 over the past few years. Notable receipts include a $10,000 donation from a trust connected to Joe Faro, the developer of Salem’s Tuscan Village; a contribution from Churchill Downs, which owns the casino at the Rockingham Park Mall; and a smattering of Concord lobbyists.
A state lawmaker running what amounts to a one-man political advocacy organization is unusual, to say the least. But Granite Solutions also serves to boost Sweeney’s personal brand.
Last week, after Sweeney debated tax policy on WMUR’s political talk show, he sent an email to the Granite Solutions’ mailing list, urging people to stream the debate and donate to Granite Solutions.
Sweeney says he sees the work of his personal political committee as an extension of his public service: “I view Granite Solutions as supporting the economic agenda of Republicans in the state.”
'Until the voters don't want me'
The GOP fiscal agenda — from tax cuts to eliminating red tape for development projects — is a steady focus for Sweeney.
On other political issues, his social media-forward approach can serve to capture attention, more than enact measurable change. When lawmakers debated higher education funding last year, Sweeney strenuously alleged that undocumented students were depriving eligible Granite Staters from admission to UNH. After university officials released data that undercut his claims, Sweeney moved on.
Last fall, Sweeney told reporters to expect him and other Republicans to target specific state judges for misconduct. But such plans never materialized.
There was also Sweeney’s push to impeach Democratic Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill over her use of a state email account to assist a legal challenge to a voter registration law — even though the New Hampshire Attorney General had cleared Liot Hill of any wrongdoing. Just hours before a public hearing on Sweeney’s impeachment effort, he scuttled the bill without bothering to show up for the hearing.
To hear Sweeney tell it, when his political ideas lose traction, he’s willing to let them slide.
“Some things can start off with a lot of fire and passion and then as it goes through the system it just sort of dies out,” he said.
But as Sweeney’s shown in Concord, and as a town councilor, he can also push policies that others see as provocative or radical — or even theatrical. When Salem’s town council and budget committees were at odds over the town budget, Sweeney proposed eliminating the budget committee altogether.
“I thought it was the most ridiculous proposal I’ve ever heard. It was a bad idea, said Steve Goddu, a Republican who sits on Salem’s budget committee, and generally considers Sweeney a political ally. “It was a bad idea, and sometimes we make bad ideas and suggestions, and I think this was just his folly on this one.”
But not everybody who’s been on the receiving end of Sweeney’s politics, folly or otherwise, is as forgiving. Liot Hill says she had to waste time and money to prepare for potential impeachment proceedings that she always saw as frivolous, and believes Sweeney’s style of politics is destructive.
“There is a price to our politics when politics becomes more focused on spectacle than on substance and really it’s really the public that pays,” Liot Hill said.
Sweeney, for his part, says he sees himself pursuing his approach to politics — in real life and online — for the foreseeable future.
“I have an ability to create solutions for folks. I have an ability to sort of understand things and kind of communicate with people on it, Sweeney said. “I feel this responsibility to continue to be involved until the voters don't want me to be involved anymore.”
