Lily Tang Williams, a libertarian-leaning Republican who fled Communist China, won one of the most closely watched primary-day races in the state late Tuesday night, setting up a race against Democrat Maggie Goodlander for New Hampshire’s second congressional district.

Tang Williams received 36% of the votes in the crowded 13-person primary. Her next closest opponent, entrepreneur and establishment candidate Vikram Mansharamani, received 27%.

The race was too close to call earlier in the evening, but Tang Williams began to pull away as election day neared midnight.  

In Tang Williams’ hometown of Weare, Leah Cushman, 35, expressed enthusiastic support for the Republican nominee, whom she knows personally.

“She’s got experience with oppressive regimes, and I think she can bring a lot of that to Congress,” said Cushman.

Tang Williams’ win was her first ever in a contested partisan election. She moved to New Hampshire in 2019 after running unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in Colorado as a libertarian three years prior. In 2022, in her first foray into Granite State politics, she finished third in a nine-person Republican primary for the second congressional district. She has also previously served as a supervisor of the checklist helping to oversee elections and voter registration in her hometown.

Tang Williams’s background growing up in communist China was a focal point of her campaign and of her politics. She came to the United States in 1988 at the age of 23 to attend college and has since worked as a social worker and businessperson.

“I see the shadow of authoritarianism cast by politicians who have locked us down, closed small businesses, inflated our money, and mortgaged our children’s future,” Tang Williams said in a campaign video. “I saw it all before in China.”

Tang Williams said in an interview Wednesday morning that her primary win served as evidence that she “defied the odds to build my American Dream.”

Williams and Goodlander will face off for the seat that Rep. Annie Kuster, who has served six terms in Congress, is vacating. The seat has historically rotated between Democrats and Republicans but is currently rated “likely democrat” by the Cook Political Report.

Goodlander, a Nashua native who has served in various capacities in all three branches of government, easily defeated her lone opponent, Concord’s Colin Van Ostern, winning 64% of the vote.

Unlike Tang Williams, Goodlander has been steeped in politics her entire life. Her mother, Elizabeth Tamposi, served in the George H. W. Bush administration, and Goodlander most recently served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. She previously clerked at the Supreme Court, served as an advisor to John McCain, and served as an intilligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Goodlander focused her primary race on reproductive freedom and access to affordable healthcare and childcare during her primary.

The general election between the two candidates will likely feature debates over the economy, immigration, abortion rights, and democracy, among other issues.

“Maggie is part of the Biden administration and the Biden-omics really has hurt lots of people in the district,” Tang Williams said.

She argued the federal government bears responsibility for inflation, and in particular prints too much money.

Tang Williams also railed against undocumented immigrants coming into the country, singling out Boston as an example of a city that has run out of housing due to the influx of immigrants. She contrasted their immigration decisions with hers.

“If you want to be like Lily, come here legally, work hard,” she said, referring to herself in the third person.

With respect to reproductive rights, Tang Williams said she will neither sign a federal abortion ban nor sign legislation enshrining abortion rights at the federal level. She believes abortion should be left to the states.

At a debate last week, Tang Williams declined when pressed by Mansharamani, her leading primary opponent, to say the results of the 2020 presidential election were legitimate.

Though she has been linked to the Free State Project, Tang Williams said she is not active in the organization and does not believe New Hampshire should secede from the country.

Goodlander did not respond to a request for an interview on Wednesday about how her policy beliefs compare to Tang Williams’s.

Tang Williams acknowledged she faced an uphill battle to beat Goodlander, citing the financial support the Democrat has received from out of state and her connections to Washington. But she believes pulling off another surprise in November is in the cards. 

“I defied the odds to win my primary,” she said. “I had no establishment, no super PAC,  but I relied on the people, and the people think I’m the real deal.”