Election 2020 live updates: Trump makes Election Day appeal on Fox as Biden heads to Pennsylvania
LONDONDERRY, N.H. — A line of several hundred people snaked through the parking lot at the largest polling site in New Hampshire, just south of Manchester, early Tuesday morning — an early sign of what’s predicted to be a record turnout.
Ryan Cronin, a 38-year-old property manager, arrived at 4:50 a.m. and claimed the third spot in line outside Londonderry High School. He was hoping to beat the rush, he said, and preparing to do something he hadn’t done four years ago: vote.
He didn’t feel motivated to cast a ballot for either candidate in 2016, he said. “Trump was an unknown,” Cronin explained, “and I don’t think a lot of people were behind Hillary.”
But this time, worried about the how the pandemic is affecting the economy and how a Biden administration might enforce lockdowns, Cronin felt motivated to turn out for Trump. “I don’t like mandates, socialized health care, and the general talk of the economy, if it goes the other way,” he said. “And I know people who didn’t vote the last time with the same feeling.”
Lisa Kircaldie, a 51-year-old mother of three, said she felt compelled to vote for the first time in nearly three decades. She figured the last time she voted was 1992. “I’ve been content not to vote for more than 20 years,” she said. But she registered and prepared to cast a ballot — most likely for Trump.
“Most of my friends and colleagues are all Democratic, so I’ve been relatively silent on the matter,” Kircaldie said. “They’d see me as a bad person.”
But she had to admit that she has benefited under Trump’s policies.
“He’s been good for the economy,” she said. “I think a lot of people forget that. My taxes have improved under him. And it’s bigger than personality. It’s about policy.”
Londonderry — a town with more than 20,000 registered voters — voted for Trump in 2016, and is the sort of district that the president must hold this year to compete with an expected rise in Democratic turnout.
