Beriont running for Congress touting local political experience

Carleigh Beriont, chair of the Hampton Selectboard, is running for the Primary Election nomination to represent New Hampshire’s First Congressional District as a Democrat, and thinks it's about time people talk to each other again. 

Beriont grew up in New Jersey, and married her husband in Enfield, in 2012, before living and working in the Republic of the Marshall Islands as a teacher for three years. 

An adjunct faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School and former union organizer, Beriont said she’s observed the local impact of decisions made at the state and federal levels on local communities, like her own, which influenced her decision to seek election to Congress. She said she’s put 16,885 miles on her car campaigning across New Hampshire. 

“I study U.S. policy and environmental policy, labor policy, immigration policy, and teach about it. I think it was really after the last election in 2024, I started to feel like there was a real disconnect between what I was teaching my students, and the reality that we were experiencing, in terms of how much of an impact they could have on the world around them,” Beriont said. 

“I love local government, but we also got to a point where there are a lot of decisions being made in Concord, and in Washington, D.C., that are making it really hard for municipalities like ours to budget and to continue to operate and invest in a sustainable way,” she said. 

Last year in Hampton, they underwent revaluation, and taxes increased significantly, she said. Where does the money come from?

“It was at the same time that one of my daughter’s classmates, they lost their home after the mom was in a car accident and ended up moving to Rochester, but it took them 11 months to find another place they could afford to live,” Beriont said. “It was really my frustration with all of these systems that just seem to make life harder for so many people that made me think that I needed to run, when I saw that the seat was open.” 

On housing affordability, Beriont said she supports incentivizing local water and sewer development, and offering federal, low-interest loans to smaller builders, to reduce overhead costs on the supply side of the equation.

Infrastructure "is a huge burden, and it’s a real deterrent to construction. And I think it would really help to put in more affordable housing in the state,” she said.  

“We see people being pushed away from the communities where they grew up in, we also see a lot of challenges with people’s ability to age in place. I think when it comes to housing, it’s not just about finding a place to live, it’s also about supporting people who are living in houses now.” 

Her experience on a local budget committee informs her understanding that the biggest expense is health care, she said, and thinks federal policy could have major impacts locally. She said, while she’s not fixated on arguments over specific details, universal health care, including dental and vision, is her goal. She’d like to shift the conversation to an appropriate cost burden, meaning "what percentage of a person's income is it acceptable for them to spend on health care."

“Universal health care is something that I think would make a huge difference for families in New Hampshire,” Beriont said.

“Whether we call it Medicare for All or ‘universal’ or ‘single-payer,’ these are things that I’m not as wed to,” she said. “What I want is health care for everybody that we can afford and is reliable.”

Beriont is in lockstep with other Democratic candidates on some issues — she supports Medicare for All policies, comprehensive immigration reform, raising the federal minimum wage and campaign finance reform (she supports term limits, even self-imposed, and said she won’t take corporate PAC money). But she’s also running a campaign without using social media, and encouraged other candidates to get off of social sites through February, noting it tends to encourage "us-them" framing of issues.

“I am not running for Congress to be only the representative for Democrats in this district,” she said. “I want to represent Republicans and independents and Democrats, and be the very best representative for all of them, because we all deserve good representation in Washington. And that means talking to people who don’t agree with you, and making it very clear that, even if they don’t agree with you, you’re not walking away from the conversation."

Belknap Rep. David Nagel (D-Gilmanton) said he endorsed Beriont for Congress in a phone call on Friday afternoon. He said, as a political moderate himself, it’s important that moderates have representation, and he’s impressed by Beriont’s bonafides. He said appealing to moderate voters is no easy task.

“We are 70% of the electorate,” Nagel said, referring to moderate voters.

“They remember us when they want our vote,” but tend to forget about us other times, he said. “I have full faith that she won’t do that.” 

“No. 1, she’s smart. No. 2, she's energetic and, No. 3, she’s very civic-minded,” Nagel said. “I’m very impressed with her.”

The state Primary Election is Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Restoring faith in our institutions among Americans is paramount, she said.

“Democracy is something we all have to participate in and believe in and, right now, I can’t blame anybody for thinking that our system doesn’t work for them,” Beriont said. “The divides in this state and this country are not between people, they’re between people and a system that does not serve us. And I think that if more politicians actually showed up in their communities, and were part of their communities, and had similar experiences to the people they’re representing and thought about representation as a relationship, as a conversation, we would have a very different system.” 

Beriont said, unequivocally, she opposes the ongoing war in the Middle East, and worries about nuclear proliferation. When asked what challenges she believes she and colleagues in Congress would face over the next decade, she pointed to artificial intelligence in the realm of nuclear weapons. 

“We live in a country now where there are no checks on the president’s authority to launch a nuclear weapon — he has sole, unilateral authority to do that,” she said. “I think with the increase in autonomous weapons systems and the use of AI in the military, this is something that our technology has outpaced our ability to regulate or oversee. I think we need to do a lot more oversight when it comes to AI, and especially when it comes to our use of nuclear weapons.”

Beriont is competing in a packed Democratic Primary Election for New Hampshire’s First Congressional District. She pointed to her varied experience — in local politics and as a labor organizer — as aspects helping her stand out from other candidates. 

“I think my constellation of experiences definitely differentiates me.”  

“I am serving as the chair of the selectboard of the second-biggest polling place in the district, a community [of] 17,000 in the winter and up to 150,000 in the summer, and with that come all sorts of challenging decisions,” Beriont said. “I get to sit around a table and make them across from Republicans and other Democrats on a weekly basis.”