Lily Tang Williams

Deep Dive

Lily Tang Williams has never held federal office. She was the Republican nominee in New Hampshire’s 2nd District in 2024 and lost to Maggie Goodlander, and she won the Republican primary here again on September 8, 2026 with 64.9 percent of the vote. New Hampshire’s primary results have been called but not yet certified. On November 3, 2026 the ballot in the state’s 2nd District carries Maggie Goodlander, the Democratic incumbent, Lily Tang Williams, the Republican nominee, and Robbie Mahrou, an independent.

Almost everything she has said about what the United States sends came in two forums a week apart in October 2024, when she was running for this seat the first time. At a foreign policy forum at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, reported by the Concord Monitor on October 21, 2024, she said she would have to see the particular bills on aid for Israel, and that in general the United States should keep letting the government of Israel purchase weapons, suggesting the money from those sales could help pay down the national debt. The United States should help bring the parties together to negotiate, she said, but “we cannot tell Israel what to do.”

A week later, at a forum hosted by New Hampshire Public Radio and the Granite State News Collaborative on October 28, 2024, she was asked whether she would support an arms embargo and did not answer the question directly. Asked whether she would support continuing the current level of American aid to the government of Israel, she pointed instead to the larger sums the United States has spent on Ukraine, and said she wanted “our foreign policy look at each country’s separate deals instead of lump(ing) them together”, naming Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as three separate deals. Each bill, she said, should be looked at on its own.

She has said one sentence about aid to Palestinians. Asked by the Granite State News Collaborative’s youth voter guide, published October 21, 2024, for her view of federal policy on the war between Israel and Palestine, she condemned the October 7 attack and said she would offer the Israeli people emotional, diplomatic and moral support. She closed the answer: “Emotionally and morally, we need to support our allies and stand with them and offer cooperation, but my heart goes to all of the innocent people who are involved. We do have a role to provide humanitarian aid.” She did not say who should receive that aid, or how much, and she has not returned to the subject since.

How she describes the war runs through the same weeks. At the October 28 forum she said “It’s unfortunate for the innocent people who are involved in this Middle East conflict”, and that the government of Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself. At the law school forum she said the United States should keep trying to negotiate a peace, and asked “How do you do any kind of peaceful deals when one side wants another side to be totally dead, eliminated, destroyed?” At a Republican forum at Dartmouth in August 2024, asked about aid to Ukraine and to Israel, she said “We would like to support our allies,” and then “And we’d also like to ask the question, how are we going to pay for it?”

Her 2026 campaign has not taken this up. The foreign policy section of her issues page names no country in this conflict; it says she believes in peace through strength and that Congress has been derelict in refusing to declare war. Her campaign’s press archive runs from August 2022 to September 2026 and carries one item on this subject, from October 2023, which is on her research page. Citizens Count, a New Hampshire civic organization that records candidates’ positions in their own words, shows no answer from her on conditioning military aid to Israel, on a survey she did not answer at all.

The money

Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found

In their words

Research log

The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.

Every page named below was opened and read on 2026-09-19 unless the entry says otherwise. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. She has never served in Congress, so there are no roll calls on this record, and the committees this site tracks record no funding on it.

U.S. military aid and weapons to the government of Israel

• [Position, 2024-10-21] The Concord Monitor’s report of the Second Congressional District foreign policy forums, by Charlotte Matherly. The passage in full: “Both Goodlander and Williams reaffirmed Israel’s role as an ally to the U.S. and said the country has a right to defend itself after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by militant group Hamas. Williams said the U.S. should keep trying to negotiate peace but that the student protests that swept the country this year make it difficult. ‘How do you do any kind of peaceful deals when one side wants another side to be totally dead, eliminated, destroyed?’ Williams said. ... She said she’d have to see specific bills on aid for Israel, but in general, the U.S. should continue to let Israel purchase weapons – she suggested that revenue could help relieve the national debt. The U.S. should help bring people together to negotiate, she said, but at the same time, ‘we cannot tell Israel what to do.’” Everything outside the two short quotations is the reporter’s summary of what she said. The article carries a published date of October 21, 2024 and describes the forums as held “last week”, so the words were spoken some days earlier; no page found gives the day. The law school’s own notice of the forums, published October 23, 2024, says they were presented by the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire, the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy and the Warren B. Rudman Center, that Tim Horgan moderated, and that the topics included “the extent to which the United States should offer military and monetary support to its allies”. It carries no transcript and no date.
• [Position, 2024-10-28] The forum hosted by New Hampshire Public Radio and the Granite State News Collaborative on Monday, October 28, 2024, the first time she and her opponent shared a stage. Claire Sullivan’s report for the New Hampshire Bulletin, as Business NH Magazine republished it, records: “Williams also did not directly answer a question about whether she would support an arms embargo. She argued Oct. 7 would have never happened if there had been stronger leadership in the White House. ‘It’s unfortunate for the innocent people who are involved in this Middle East conflict,’ but she said Israel has a right to exist and defend itself. Asked if she would support continuing the current level of U.S. aid to Israel, which has totaled $18 billion since the war began, she pointed instead to the larger spending on Ukraine. The Council on Foreign Relations puts that figure at more than $100 billion in direct aid since the Russian invasion in 2022. ‘I want to have our foreign policy look at each country’s separate deals instead of lump(ing) them together. Ukraine and Israel, Taiwan are totally three separate deals,’ she said. ‘We need to look at each places’ (deal), each bill separately.’” The bracketed insertions in the last two quotations are the reporter’s and are reproduced as printed. The $18 billion and the $100 billion are the reporter’s figure and the Council on Foreign Relations’, not hers, and neither is carried on the card. The New Hampshire Bulletin’s own copy of this article could not be opened from here; Business NH Magazine’s copy opens and is what is linked.
• [Position, 2024-10-28] New Hampshire Public Radio’s own report of the same forum, by Gabriel Perry of the Laconia Daily Sun. It records that she said the Biden administration’s approach had made the world less secure, pointed to the nuclear deal with Iran, and pointed to spending on the Ukrainian government as evidence that federal policy does not benefit American citizens. Her words there: “The world is on fire, especially the Middle East, because of failed Biden and your husband Jake Sullivan’s foreign policies” and “This tragedy would never happen on Oct. 7 if we had very strong, not absent leadership in the White House.” Nothing in this report adds a position on what the United States should send; it is set out here so that nothing is lost.
• [Position, 2024-08-20] Dartmouth News’s report of the Republican forum at Dartmouth, by Matt Golec. The forum was held the previous evening, a Monday, and the report is dated August 20, 2024. “In discussing aid to Ukraine and Israel, both candidates recognized the need for U.S. involvement but expressed concerns about funding oversight. ‘We would like to support our allies,’ Tang Williams said. ‘And we’d also like to ask the question, how are we going to pay for it?’” The two quoted spans are separated in the source by the attribution and are kept separate here. The other speaker at that forum was Bill Hamlen, and the sentences about Vladimir Putin and the Biden administration are his, not hers.
• [Position, 2024-10-31] InDepthNH’s report of the WMUR general election debate, by Paula Tracy, published the night of October 31, 2024. Its whole record of her on this subject is one sentence: “Tang Williams said she supports Israel.” That is the reporter’s summary and not a quotation, and it is rendered that way. Our research presented “supports Israel” as words of hers; the page does not put them in her mouth.
• [Position, read 2026-09-19] Citizens Count’s profile of her records her answer on “Limit aid to Israel” as “No Response”, to the question “Should military aid to Israel include a requirement that Israel take certain actions to reduce civilian casualties?”, from its 2024 issue survey. That is worth little on its own: she left every question on that survey and on its 2026 survey unanswered, so the blank is a fact about the survey’s reach rather than about her. Every position the site does record for her comes from a debate, a forum or her own website.
• [Reaction window, 2023-10-11] Her campaign’s press release “Lily Tang Williams Condemns Hamas Atrocities”, carried on her press release page. In full: “Lily Tang Williams, Republican Candidate for New Hampshire’s Second District seat in Congress, spoke out today on the Israel-Hamas war. ‘Last Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath and the Simchat Torah holiday — the world saw the culmination of decades of Israeli attempts to coexist with radical elements among their many Muslim neighbors.’ She said. ‘The Hamas forces now in control of the Gaza Strip launched the single most effective attack on Judaism since the Holocaust.’ As the atrocities continue to unfold, ‘My heart goes out to the people of Israel. Indeed, to Jews all over the world.’ She said. The candidate noted that she joins leaders in this country condemning the acts of wickedness by Hamas, calling for the return of hostages to their families, and for an eventual end to the violence. ‘Unfortunately, violence will, no doubt, escalate in the coming weeks and months. But I hope we can unite in our resolve to stand with the people of Israel, no matter our political party.’ Ms. Williams said.” The release ends with the line “(Note: Spelling corrected)”, which is the campaign’s own. Items dated in the weeks after October 7, 2023 stay on this page and go on no card. This is the only item in her campaign’s whole press archive, August 2022 to September 2026, that touches this subject.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

• [Position, 2024-10-21] The Granite State News Collaborative’s Know Your Vote interview, reported by Gabriel Perry of the Laconia Daily Sun and posted by Melanie Plenda. The question and her whole answer: “Q: What’s your view on current federal policy vis-a-vis the war between Israel and Palestine? Lily Tang Williiams: Innocent people are the biggest victims of any wars, and under the Biden-Harris administration, I think they’ve shown the world they’re weak. I condemn the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and I would like to offer the Israeli people emotional, diplomatic and moral support. At the same time, I always like to promote peace — my foreign policy is peace through strength. Emotionally and morally, we need to support our allies and stand with them and offer cooperation, but my heart goes to all of the innocent people who are involved. We do have a role to provide humanitarian aid.” The misspelling of her surname is the page’s own. The last sentence is the only thing she has said about humanitarian aid; it names no recipient and no amount.
• Nothing else located at any date. No statement of hers was found on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, on the aid pipeline into Gaza, or on any appropriation for Palestinian civilians.

Characterization of the conflict

• [Position, 2024-10-21] At the law school forum, as the Concord Monitor reports it: “How do you do any kind of peaceful deals when one side wants another side to be totally dead, eliminated, destroyed?” The same report records that she and her opponent both said the country has a right to defend itself after the October 7, 2023 attack.
• [Position, 2024-10-21] In the Know Your Vote interview: “Innocent people are the biggest victims of any wars”; “I condemn the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel”; “my foreign policy is peace through strength”.
• [Position, 2024-10-28] At the NHPR and Granite State News Collaborative forum, as Business NH Magazine carries the report: “It’s unfortunate for the innocent people who are involved in this Middle East conflict”, and, in the reporter’s words, that Israel has a right to exist and defend itself.
• [Position, 2024-10-02] A post on her X account at x.com/Lily4Liberty, a page that identifies the account as hers and carries a published time of October 2, 2024. Its opening, as the page serves it: “Israel has my support in its right to defend itself against Iran’s aggression. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and one of the United States strongest allies, we must stand with them in their fight for their existence.” The double space after “Iran’s” is the post’s own. The rest is cut off by an ellipsis in what the page serves, beginning “The world is on fire because we have weak and absent leadershi…”, so only the complete part is set out. It is not on the card: its subject is Iran.

Related rhetoric and lobbying

• Nothing located. No statement of hers was found about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or about any other advocacy organization in this area, and no money from any political committee this site tracks is recorded on this record. Her 10-point good government plan, on her issues page, asks for real-time disclosure of members’ meetings with lobbyists in general and names no group.

Safety and antisemitism (context, not a position on what America sends)

• [Position, 2024-09-17] Media Matters for America, “GOP-backed House nominee posted a false claim that Jewish people ‘gave up their firearms to Hitler,’ spurring the Holocaust”, by Eric Hananoki. It reports that she twice shared a meme about Holocaust victims’ shoes to argue against gun control, in June 2022 and April 2023, writing: “Remember what happened to Jews after they gave up their guns to Hitler. Our #2A exists to prevent tyranny. If you want to reduce mass shootings in schools, repeal gun free zones where the criminals always target our most vulnerable people.” It reports that she shared and disputed a PolitiFact article calling the argument a misreading of history, writing “They need to listen to the survivors of the Holocaust.” Media Matters for America is an American media watchdog organization that reports on conservative media. This is a third party’s account, the underlying posts are about gun policy, and none of it is about what the United States sends; it is recorded here and nowhere else.
• [Position, 2024-04-22] Revival Nation, “American Campuses Brewing Antisemitism”, published May 1, 2024 by a church-affiliated news site. The article is not an interview with her. It embeds one post from her X account, dated April 22, 2024: “Mao’s Cultural Revolution started on the ‘top’ Chinese university campuses. American Cultural Revolution is happening on our elitist college campuses. BLM, DEI, climate justice, Trans Rights, Free Palestine, just tools being used to destroy our traditional values & social norms.” The quotation marks around “top” are the post’s. Our research described this as her commenting on the campus demonstrations and drawing a comparison to the Cultural Revolution; that is a fair reading of the one post, but the article carries no reporting of her beyond it.

What her campaign site and her own pages say

• [Position, read 2026-09-19] Her issues page. Its headings are her 10-point good government plan, affordability, border security, foreign policy, freedom of speech, second amendment rights, education, Social Security and Medicare, and term limits. The foreign policy section reads in part: “I believe in peace through strength, having a strong and non-political military, and pursuing American interests FIRST. As the current president’s administration has concluded armed conflicts around the globe, and seeks to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, we must be unified and consistent in seeking diplomatic, economic, and technological solutions whenever possible. Congress has been derelict in building consensus amongst our citizens by refusing to declare war when we have waged war.” A search of the whole page for israel, gaza, palestin, hamas, antisemit, jewish, aipac, unrwa, foreign aid, middle east and ukraine returns nothing.
• [Position, read 2026-09-19] Her press release page, which carries every release the campaign has issued from August 1, 2022 to September 8, 2026 on a single page. Of the forty-odd items, one touches this subject, the October 2023 release set out above. The 2026 releases are about the primary, affordability, term limits, endorsements and her opponent, and none of them mentions this conflict.
• [Read 2026-09-19] Her campaign home page at https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/ opens and carries nothing on the subject. The page her site publishes as the full video of the 2026 WMUR Republican debate for this district, at https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/congress/full-video-2026-wmur-nh-republican-cd2-debate/, is a link to WMUR’s own video and carries no text on the subject.
• [Position, read 2026-09-19] Ballotpedia’s page for her reproduces her campaign website’s issue text in full and records that she has not completed its 2026 candidate survey. She did complete its survey in 2023, and neither those answers nor the reproduced website text mentions Israel, Gaza, Palestinians or foreign aid.

The race

• [Read 2026-09-19] Ballotpedia’s page for this election: “Incumbent Maggie Goodlander, Lily Williams, and Robbie Mahrou are running in the general election for U.S. House New Hampshire District 2 on November 3, 2026.” Mahrou is listed as an Independent. The general election is November 3, 2026, the primary was September 8, 2026 and the filing deadline was June 12, 2026. In the Republican primary she took 64.9 percent and 15,300 votes over Victor Orlando, Dan Nicholson and Michael Callis. In the 2024 general election for this seat she took 47.0 percent and 187,810 votes. The page carries the standing caution that its candidate list may not be complete, and names her “Lily Williams” throughout, where the record and her own campaign use Lily Tang Williams.

Places that could not be read, so nothing is claimed from them

• https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2026/09/07/the-2nd-congressional-district-as-goodlander-seeks-reelection-three-say-she-hasnt-earned-it/ and https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/09/05/candidates-in-2nd-congressional-district-race-debate-the-issues/ . The New Hampshire Bulletin refuses both a desktop browser identity and a rendering retrieval. One of its articles is read through Business NH Magazine’s republication, which is linked above; nothing is claimed from these two.
• https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/candidates-2nd-congressional-district-issues , the syndicated copy of a New Hampshire Bulletin report of the September 2024 primary debate, cited in our research. Could not be opened.
• https://nationalnewswatch.com/2026/09/08/lily-tang-williams-again-wins-gop-nomination-in-new-hampshires-2nd-congressional-district , cited in our research for her 2026 nomination. Could not be opened.
• https://www.facebook.com/wmur9/posts/lily-tang-williams-a-candidate-for-congress-in-new-hampshires-2nd-district-discu/1006734375187610/ , a WMUR post cited in our research. The address carries a prose slug and returns an error; it is treated as unread.
• https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/tang-williams-orlando-go-toe-to-toe-in-feisty-republican-debate/article_92cc9f32-9a5a-49b0-96ae-1bd0949bb656.html , a report of the 2026 Republican primary debate. Refused with a rate limit.

Not on the card, and why

• Her campaign’s press release of October 11, 2023, in every form: quotation, paraphrase and date. It is the only thing on this subject her campaign has ever published, and items dated in those weeks are kept off cards. It is set out in full above.
• Everything she has said about Ukraine, including at the New England College primary debate of September 2024 and at both October 2024 forums. Ukraine is a different question from what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians.
• Her words about Iran, including the October 2024 post on her X account and the reference to the Iranian nuclear deal at the October 28 forum. Iran does not appear on a card front, and the post is about Iran from its first clause.
• The Media Matters report and the Revival Nation post. Safety and antisemitism material is context and never the answer to what America sends, and the first is another organization’s account of her.
• Her attack on her opponent’s husband at the October 28, 2024 forum. It says nothing about what the United States should send.
• The $18 billion and $100 billion aid figures in the October 28 report. They are the reporter’s framing of the question, not her words.
• Maggie Goodlander’s answers at the same forums and debates. No one else’s record is narrated on this card.

Sources retrieved for this card (address; opened or could not open; date)

• https://www.concordmonitor.com/2024/10/21/cd2-foreign-policy-forum-57462851/ (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-21)
• https://www.collaborativenh.org/know-your-vote-articles/2024/10/21/lily-tang-williams-on-the-issues-where-the-2nd-cd-gop-candidate-stands (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-21)
• https://www.businessnhmagazine.com/article/goodlanderampcomma-williams-agree-american-dream-is-under-threatampcomma-but-divided-on-the-reasons (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-28)
• https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2024-10-28/goodlander-tang-williams-debate-housing-taxes-gun-safety-in-cd2-forum (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-28)
• https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2024/08/two-us-house-candidates-participate-gop-forum (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-08-20)
• https://indepthnh.org/2024/10/31/polar-opposite-candidates-goodlander-and-tang-williams-debate-for-congressional-district-2-seat/ (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-31)
• https://law.unh.edu/blog/2024/10/candidates-discuss-us-china-tensions-wars-middle-east-europe-immigration-policy (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-10-23)
• https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/congress/press-releases/ (opened; 2026-09-19; the whole archive, August 2022 to September 2026)
• https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/congress/issues/ (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/ (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/congress/full-video-2026-wmur-nh-republican-cd2-debate/ (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.citizenscount.org/candidate/lily-tang-williams (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://ballotpedia.org/New_Hampshire%27s_2nd_Congressional_District_election,_2026 (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://ballotpedia.org/Lily_Williams (opened; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.mediamatters.org/antisemitism/gop-backed-house-nominee-lily-tang-williams-posted-false-claim-jewish-people-gave (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-09-17)
• https://revivalnation.com/blog/2024/05/01/american-campuses-brewing-antisemitism/ (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2024-05-01)
• https://x.com/Lily4Liberty/status/1841583103355027644 (opened; 2026-09-19; posted 2024-10-02)
• https://indepthnh.org/2026/09/01/orlando-stakes-position-as-working-class-alternative-to-tang-williams-in-nh-02-gop-debate/ (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2026-09-01; carries nothing on this subject)
• https://www.concordmonitor.com/2026/09/09/goodlander-williams-congressional-race/ (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2026-09-09; carries nothing on this subject)
• https://www.jta.org/2026/09/08/politics/new-hampshire-congressional-candidates-compete-to-out-criticize-one-another-on-israel-aipac (opened; 2026-09-19; published 2026-09-08; does not name her)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Tang_Williams (opened; 2026-09-19; an encyclopedia entry, used for nothing)
• https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2026/09/07/the-2nd-congressional-district-as-goodlander-seeks-reelection-three-say-she-hasnt-earned-it/ (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/09/05/candidates-in-2nd-congressional-district-race-debate-the-issues/ (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/candidates-2nd-congressional-district-issues (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• https://nationalnewswatch.com/2026/09/08/lily-tang-williams-again-wins-gop-nomination-in-new-hampshires-2nd-congressional-district (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.facebook.com/wmur9/posts/lily-tang-williams-a-candidate-for-congress-in-new-hampshires-2nd-district-discu/1006734375187610/ (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/tang-williams-orlando-go-toe-to-toe-in-feisty-republican-debate/article_92cc9f32-9a5a-49b0-96ae-1bd0949bb656.html (could not open; 2026-09-19)
• This is a record of what was checked on 2026-09-19, not a claim that no other statement exists.