A New Hampshire state legislator is facing potential expulsion this week after invoking Nazi genocide terminology in a social media post directed at a Jewish colleague, marking another episode in a pattern of inflammatory rhetoric that has come to define his political career.

GOP state Rep. Travis Corcoran posted a reference to the “final solution”—the Nazi plan to systematically murder European Jews—while responding to Democratic colleague Jessica Grill’s proposal for a bipartisan karaoke caucus. Corcoran claimed the remark was sarcasm and that he did not know Grill was Jewish.

During testimony before the legislature’s disciplinary committee, Corcoran dismissed the proceedings as a politically motivated exercise. He characterized his defenders’ expectations that he apologize as a “humiliation ritual” designed to demonstrate power, and vowed on social media not to capitulate to what he called pressure from political opponents.

Grill, whose district includes the target of Corcoran’s comment, called for his removal from office. She also noted that Corcoran had declined her earlier requests for a private resolution of the matter. Corcoran departed the hearing before she testified.

A self-styled libertarian with a prolific and frequently provocative social media presence, Corcoran has built a reputation throughout New Hampshire for coarse and offensive commentary spanning years. His public statements have included inflammatory remarks about race, calls for racial slurs to be repeated in public settings, and—prior to his election in 2022—a defense of an attempted assassination as “morally legitimate.”

Several current and former Jewish state lawmakers, alongside non-Jewish legislators and community leaders, urged the body to discipline Corcoran. Jeffrey Salloway, a former Democratic state representative and Conservative Jewish leader, was among those who testified. One Republican defender, state Rep. Matt Drew, framed opposition to the disciplinary action in free-speech terms but stopped short of claiming the original comment was not antisemitic.

The Corcoran case is not isolated. Another New Hampshire Republican, state Rep. Matt Sabourin dit Choinière, invited Holocaust deniers to testify before the state’s Holocaust education committee in January while attempting to insert Holocaust denial into public school curricula.

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