Primary Candidate – US Congress CD-1
Email: Contact Carleigh Beriont
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Carleigh Beriont is a union organizer, teacher, local elected leader, and mom of two who has spent her life strengthening communities and fighting for working families.
At home in Hampton, Carleigh lives with her husband Eric — a proud public middle school English teacher — and their two kids. Hampton is a purple community on the New Hampshire Seacoast, and leading it has taught her that good governance means showing up, listening, and finding real solutions for real people.
After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in three years, Carleigh was a public high school teacher in the Marshall Islands, a country grappling with the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing and climate change. That experience forged a conviction she carries to this day: it’s not enough to name what’s broken. Leaders have to help build something better.
Back in the United States, Carleigh helped lead the successful campaign to unionize Harvard’s graduate student workers and found UAW Local 5118. Together, they won higher wages, childcare subsidies, and anti-retaliation protections for thousands of workers. She earned a Master of Theological Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD from Harvard, as a scholar of American history, foreign relations, and nuclear policy during the 20th century. Since 2022, she has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, exploring how US public policy and religion intersect on issues from immigration and climate to labor, education, LGBTQ+ rights, and international relations.
Carleigh has helped elect Democrats across New Hampshire and in 2024, she won a seat on the Hampton Select Board. Now, as Chair, she serves as Hampton’s chief elected leader — presiding over Select Board meetings, serving as Sewer and Election Commissioner, setting the town’s policy agenda, and managing a municipal budget that determines whether roads get paved, the transfer station stays open, and the fire department has the staff they need. She also serves on the Budget Committee and spends her free time looking for ways to save property taxpayers money. Carleigh loves local government and working with her colleagues (Democrats and Republicans) to make life affordable and the community livable and safe.