NH political party power reaches all-time high

With slowing revenue and fewer federal funds, everyone expected a tough year for state legislators to craft New Hampshire’s next budget. What wasn’t clear was how new legislative leaders would work together to get the budget over the finish line. At the close of the legislative session, a closer look at voting behavior shows New Hampshire party leaders ruled their caucuses with a heavy hand and partisanship reached an all-time high.

Partisanship measure peaked in 2025

The first gauge of party power is party unity, which peaked in 2025.

Party unity is the percentage of roll call votes in each legislative session in which a majority of one party opposed a majority of the other party. This reflects how often legislators drew a sharp line in the sand based on party, with few legislators crossing party lines. The New Hampshire nonprofit Citizens Count has calculated party unity back to 1999, the first year detailed voting record data is available through the state legislative database.

In 2025, party unity reached an all-time high for both chambers: 93% in the state House of Representatives and 90% in the state Senate.

As a point of comparison, from 2011-2020, party unity averaged 78%. From 2001-2010, party unity averaged 71%. For some, a high party unity score indicates unproductive hyperpartisanship. For others, it shows party leaders successfully martialed their troops to accomplish their policy goals.

Either way, it’s clear party leaders – particularly the Republicans in power – kept their caucuses on the party lines this year.

Party leaders used legislative procedure to drive policy change

There are also more subtle indicators of how legislative leaders are shaping the process. Compared to the 2000s and 2010s, the 2025 New Hampshire House and Senate gathered for fewer voting days, tabled more bills to limit debate, and put more policy decisions into the state budget bill.

For example, in the 2000s, the state budget policy bill – always numbered HB 2 – was roughly 28,000 words on average. This year HB 2 was over 80,000 words and covered everything from car inspections to vaccine requirements.

According to some observers, this is simply “how the sausage gets made in a democracy.” After all, the state budget barely passed the House this year, and some representatives only supported it because of a favored policy change in HB 2.

However, Granite Staters should be wary that we don’t become too much like our dysfunctional federal government, where most legislation never makes it out of committee and legislators don’t even know all the policy in bloated budget bills.

Party leaders punish members

A final indicator of party power in 2025 was Republican leaders’ choice to remove some committee members over their votes. In May Rep. Mark Pearson (R-Hampstead) was removed as chairman of the House Child and Family Law Committee. Rep. Arnie Davis (R-Berlin) was removed as vice chairman of the House Resources and Recreation Development Committee. Other non-ranking Republicans, such as Rep. Joe Barton (R-Littleton), were removed from their committees after voting against their caucus. House Majority Leader Jason Osborne told Kevin Landrigan of the Union Leader, “Politics is a team sport. When players run the wrong way down the field to score points for the opposing team, they are going to spend more time on the sideline. It’s not a punishment or retaliation. It’s about fielding players who want to win.”

Some Republicans have a more aggressive perspective, however. In May 2025 screenshots of an alleged chat between Republican House leaders leaked to the media, discussing how to punish Republicans who vote against the party line. One representative suggested “revoking committee, parking spots, flogging them in the state house square, egging their house, or slashing their tires.” Party leadership never commented on the screenshots.

The Democratic Party has also been accused of punishing or isolating legislators who go against the party. For example, back in 2022 Rep. Tony Labranche left the Democratic Party over the “undemocratic nature” of the party. He wrote, “I cannot in good conscience be a member of a party that claims to be democratic and grassroots when it does not let its own members have a say in the decision-making process.”

This year Rep. Jonah Orion Wheeler (D-Peterborough) has faced harsh criticism from Democrats over his votes on gender-related issues. He told the Concord Monitor he suspects that is why he was moved to a different committee.

With Republicans in control of the state House and Senate, however, Democrats have limited power to wield this year. If you want to explore the voting behavior of your local legislators, visit Citizens Count's elected official pages and select your town from the drop-down menu. Click on any of your state legislators to see their party unity score, voting record, and more.