Ahead of the general election on Nov. 3, NHPR is sitting down with some third-party and independent candidates on the ballot.
Stephen Villee, a software developer based in Hampton, is a Libertarian candidate in New Hampshire’s governor race.
Villee spoke with NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett about his campaign and top priorities.
Find all of our 2026 election coverage here.
Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
The Libertarian Party in New Hampshire has struggled to maintain major party status and stay on the ballot in recent years. And it's often an uphill battle to win as a third party candidate. Why did you decide to run?
To talk about the struggle to maintain on the ballot, we actually, most of the time, aren't “major party.” We only got major party status once in 2016. And that was really because of Gary Johnson. But most of the time we don't have major party status. So I'm trying to get us major party status again by doing as good a job as I can of being a candidate. So I'm shooting for 4%, which would give us major party status.
Editor’s note: Official “party” status in the state is defined by law as “any political organization which at the preceding state general election received at least 4 percent of the total number of votes cast for any one of the following: the office of governor or the offices of United States Senators.” The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire held party status during the general elections of 1992, 1994, 1996, and 2018.
And what's your personal motivation to run? Why are you excited about this?
I am trying to promote the Free State Project. I am a free stater myself, and I want to say how wonderful the Free State Project is and kind of be like the PR department for the Free State Project, because it's had some PR problems.
And I want to get into that in just a moment, but first, I want to hear a bit more about your platform. So the issues you want to prioritize as governor, what are you looking at?
I want to legalize cannabis and I want to promote approval voting. Although I'll accept ranked choice voting. It's kind of an interesting thing. My favorite is approval voting, but ranked choice voting may be an easier sell because it's already there in Maine and I think there's a big push for it in Massachusetts. It kind of makes sense for people. But the reason I prefer approval voting is that it's so much simpler, so much easier and less expensive.
One of your policies is also to wind down welfare for New Hampshire residents. You have admitted that that's not a super popular policy for many Granite Staters. How are you going to make that pitch to voters?
Let me clarify that I'm not going to be pushing for that in 2027 or 2028. This is a very long term thing. And to get there, we need to get lots and lots of libertarians to move here so that we become a majority so that the democratic process works in our favor.
So that's further down the line.
Way, way down. Like decades off.
You're also a supporter of the Free State Project. That's an effort to get 20,000 libertarian-minded people to move to New Hampshire and influence politics here. How does that inform your policies and your approach to this campaign?
Let me just say also that one of the differences I have with the Free State Project is I think it's going to take way, way, way more than 20,000 libertarians to get here. So I'm talking hundreds of thousands, enough to — you know, how many we have to move depends on how many locals we can win over. And basically for each local that we can win over, that's two less libertarians who have to move here. But I don't think we'll be able to win over too many. So we're looking at several hundreds of thousands of libertarians to move in.
How do you feel the tenants of the Free State Project mission are being represented in your campaign?
Getting rid of welfare. I think if you asked any libertarian anywhere, that's a big part of what they want to do: get rid of welfare, opt out of the federal income tax, pretty much legalize all drugs — things that are going to be scary to most people. That's why we need the Free State Project.
When you talk about either having folks move here or influence those who are already on board with the Free State Project, recent polls from Saint Anselm College found that 44% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of the Free State Project. There's about 15% with favorable opinions. And you wrote that you don't believe that people can often change their political views. So where do you find support for this?
Again, it would require moving people in. So I can try to, of those 44% who have an unfavorable view, I can at least help them see that it's reasonable for us libertarians to want this, even if they don't want it themselves.
And in about the 30 seconds we have left for an answer here, as you well know, there's been a lot of infighting among New Hampshire libertarians. Recently, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire was ejected from the National Party earlier this year for allegedly violating party rules. That group has also made a series of social media posts threatening Democrats. There's now a new party — the Granite State Libertarian Party, which you are affiliated with…
Yes.
In your view, how should libertarians move forward in New Hampshire?
Of course, we hope they'll align with the Granite State Libertarian Party. I hope that it's just a small group who are aligned with the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. I hope most people will see that the better way is get rid of the violent rhetoric and just try to reach out to people who are not necessarily libertarian, not hate them, but just explain that we want it for ourselves.
