Last March, Rep. Jonah Wheeler, all of 22 years old at the time, stood in front of a room of voters in Peterborough’s public library.
There was a smattering of supporters, but the crowd was overwhelmingly there to express frustration with their state representative: A week before, Wheeler, a Democrat, had spoken in favor of a Republican-backed bill that sought to limit the use of bathrooms and other spaces by trans people.
From the crowd, there were jeers. One resident dubbed Wheeler a “useful idiot” for his vote.
Wheeler remained reserved for the most part, but the back-and-forth grew heated.
“If you guys really think that because of my speech on the floor, that I'm some right-wing fascist, I mean, that's crazy,” he told the crowd.
This tense evening inside the town’s library was an unexpected turn of events. In 2022, Wheeler defeated a four-term incumbent at the age of 19 to win a House seat in his hometown. A one-time canvasser for Sen. Bernie Sanders, Wheeler wooed voters with a pitch centered on cutting corporate influence in politics and improving basic government functions. His campaign launch video described an upbringing in which poverty perpetually hung over him and his single mother.
“It wasn't really about generational change so much as it was about really returning this Legislature to one where the members in it are collaborating for the issues in our state: taxes, education, environment, the rest,” Wheeler said in an interview with NHPR last month. “And I didn't see that getting done.”
He was fresh out of high school at the time, but says he had taken an interest in politics years before. The machinations of the New Hampshire State House didn’t intimidate him. In fact, the opposite: “I knew that I would do well in participating in that process,” he said. “It's a very egotistical thing for a 19 year old to say to himself, but nonetheless, I did.”
A floor speech reverberates
Wheeler, who was re-elected to the House in 2024, stands out in Concord.
There is his age, and his race: Wheeler is Black and just a few years past high school, in a State House that is overwhelmingly white and older.
But there is also his voting record. Wheeler has earned a reputation for breaking with other Democrats on some high profile issues. One independent analysis shows he voted with his party 75% of the time, a figure that may sound high, but given the state of politics today, is far lower than most of his peers.
“I don't see it as breaking from the party. I mean, I vote on the legislation that comes before us,” he says. “I'm a member of a 400-member Legislature. I'm a part of the Democratic caucus, but I'm not there as a caucus member, a lemming.”
Three votes from this past session stand out in particular.
Wheeler was the only Democrat to vote for a Republican-authored vaccine bill: It would have given lawmakers — not the state health department — the power to designate mandatory vaccines for children.
Then, Wheeler split with the majority of his party on gun control policy, including opposing a bill that would allow police to take away guns from people in distress, commonly known as a “red flag” law. When asked about the measure, Wheeler says it runs counter to constitutional principles.
Perhaps the single most important vote, though, that threw Wheeler into the political fray in town came in March 2025, on a measure related to trans people’s use of bathrooms and other accommodations in privately owned spaces.
Wheeler spoke in favor of the Republican-backed bill on the House floor.
“If there are women who feel like their space has become not private, then we should listen to those women,” Wheeler told his colleagues. “And just because a small segment of the population would like those policies to accommodate them over women, doesn't mean that we here today can do that.”
As Wheeler spoke, some Democratic lawmakers stood up and left the chamber.
They felt he had turned his back on the party, and so they turned their back on him.
The bill passed that afternoon with only one other Democrat joining Wheeler, though it was later vetoed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
Wheeler’s vote and the speech that accompanied it found traction outside of Concord. The author JK Rowling retweeted a video he later made defending his vote. There were headlines in right-wing media, as well as interviews in which Wheeler explained his positions.
Back in his Peterborough, though, there was a lot of anger. And if you zoomed in closer, more like a feeling of betrayal: Why had the hometown kid, a one-time Sanders volunteer who grew up in a blue town, voted with Republicans on this? Voted against trans people?
And so this is how so many angry people would gather in the town’s library last March for a previously scheduled monthly listening session, less than a week after his vote.
Wheeler stood in front of a packed room, as community members and neighbors took turns challenging him. Many said his vote and his accompanying speech were a direct threat to the safety of trans people, including children. Some who spoke said they'd known Wheeler since he was in high school, and couldn’t believe how, in their view, he had misled them as an elected official.
Wheeler defended his vote and tried to explain, saying women in town, including Democrats, had asked him to support the bill. More than a year later, that evening’s forum still reverberates for many in Peterborough.
“It was a room full of really intense feelings,” said Amanda Allen, a Peterborough resident. “And I would say virtually all of those feelings were justified.”
Allen voted for Wheeler when he first ran for office, but says she lost faith in him after his vote to change who has authority over setting mandatory vaccines for kids.
“I felt that as a representative of our community, he had a responsibility to represent our community values in his voting,” she said. “And he didn't follow through with that tacit promise when you get elected to office.”
In August, 10 days before this year’s state primary, Allen launched a write-in campaign to unseat Wheeler. There was a flurry of door-knocking by volunteers, but the effort fell short: On primary night, she lost to Wheeler by 19 votes. She’s pledged to mount another write-in effort for the general election next month.
‘I just believe them to be wrong’
There is another Peterborough Democrat who has remained on Wheeler’s side, and even voted with him on some of these more controversial items.
Rep. Peter Leishman has served 13 terms in the State House and, as a one-time Republican, is viewed as a centrist by many in Concord. He’s watched Wheeler’s political career from the start.
“None of us are completely right, and I'm sure Jonah has learned a lot in his four years up there,” Leishman said. “And for anyone to take the aggressive abuse that he has taken for some of his positions, and for being so young, I think he's handled himself pretty well.”
For his part, Wheeler wasn’t totally surprised by the write-in campaign, but he does regret that Allen's late entry into the campaign meant they didn’t have a chance to debate. He wants to continue explaining himself to residents.
“They have good reason to feel betrayed,” says Wheeler. “I just believe them to be wrong.”
He said that in the future, perhaps when he’s out of office, he’ll have the chance to sit down with those voters who now oppose him.
“I'll be able to hopefully explain this to them, or they will have seen the light, or some information will have been brought up that makes me see the light,” he said.
