​​Executive councilor-elect Karen Liot Hill says Chappell Roan was her campaign trail ‘hype’ musician

Another election cycle later, the New Hampshire executive council is still overwhelmingly Republican, making new councilor-elect Democrat Karen Liot Hill the only progressive voice on the five-member organ of the executive branch. 

Liot Hill won the District 2 seat in the Nov. 5 general election, after then Democratic incumbent Cinde Warmington gave up her seat to run an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign against Joyce Craig. Liot Hill beat her opponent Kim Strathdee with a comfortable 56% majority. 

When asked what approach she would take on the negotiation table with her colleagues and who she anticipates disagreeing with on certain issues she said: “You can expect that I am going to give my colleagues a hard time on the executive council on certain issues, but I also think that there’s going to be a lot of room for common ground and for collaboration. I think our job as executive council is to help make sure that the state government is working for the people.”

Together with the governor, the executive council approves expenditures of state and federal funds and any contracts in the state that exceed $10,000. The executive council also approves appointments such as judges, commissioners, and heads of agencies and commissions.

Liot Hill, the former mayor of Lebanon, spent several months in the run up to the election canvassing across her district, spanning parts of Cheshire, Sullivan, Grafton and Merrimack counties. She has been taking it a little slow since she got off the campaign trail last week.

“I went to a Queen sing-along concert in Lebanon, which was really great,” she shared about her post-election engagements. “Hundreds of people singing belting out queen songs. We are the champions, and Crazy little thing called Love and Bohemian Rhapsody.

…And it was really fun. So fun. Very heartwarming and meaningful.”

A mother of two, Liot Hill is worried about a second Trump presidency and the effect it could have on her children, Zoey, who is in their first year at the University of New Hampshire, and Marina, who is in her mid-20s. 

“There’s a lot of unkindness, and I am concerned about all of the groups of people who feel that they are at risk, that they’re vulnerable in the coming years,” she said. “The trans community, the LGBTQ+ community, women who I think feel very vulnerable after the overturning of Roe, and now the prospect of an administration at the federal level that has an extreme agenda, an extreme anti-abortion agenda.”

A longtime politician, Liot Hill admits to having developed “thick skin” to keep herself going in the profession, but knows she has to protect her mental peace to put on a strong fight for her constituents. 

“I’m a musician,” she said. “I play the piano when I sing. And I think that’s often a place where I go when I need to soothe my soul. Music is a really important source of calm for me.”

Liot Hill shared that her “hype” song in her car while driving long stretches during campaigning was Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova” and a lot of Bob Dylan. 

“I really love Bob Dylan,” she said. “I think the music of the sixties especially draws me, because those were times when people were facing big changes in society.”

In a way that music, and those lyrics are a reckoning of what is to come in the next few years, she said.

“[Dylan’s music] was really trying to dismantle…really struggling for freedom for more people and equality, and dismantling oppression,” the diehard Dylan fan said, adding that she took a class on the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s music in college. “And I find a lot of strength in those.”

All said and done, Liot Hill is charged to serve as a councilor and work for Granite Staters in the best way possible. 

“I’m really excited,” she said. “Winning is always a great feeling and I’m really excited about doing the work ahead.”