With votes in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia yet to be fully tallied, it’s too soon to declare a winner in the 2020 presidential election. But one thing’s for certain: Joe Biden won New Hampshire soundly, and did well in the region despite some deep red pockets.
Biden, who was up over incumbent President Donald Trump in the electoral college as of press time, got 397,839 votes (53 percent) in New Hampshire to Trump’s 339,690 (45 percent).
This year’s unusual and monumental election saw record turnout around the country, a surge in early voting and absentee ballots, and a large influx of first-time voters.
Francestown went to Biden with a 58-vote margin, Siera Valentin cast her first presidential election ballot on Tuesday. Valentin said that Trump’s policies were dangerous for women, people of color and marginalized communities.
“As a woman, there are a lot of different things that Trump is proceeding with that could interfere with my life and my decisions in the future in a very negative way,” Valentin said. “It seems like [he’s] going backward instead of forward.”
Longtime Francestown resident Paula Hunter cast her ballot for Biden/Harris as well.
“I believe in their platform,” Hunter said, “and I think it’s important that we see dramatic change in this country. We’ve had enough of the horrendous regime thus far, and it’s time for some fresh air and some new ideas, and bringing back some civility.”
Francestown was one of three local towns – along with Lyndeborough and Temple – where Trump won in 2016 but were flipped to Biden in 2020. While several state senate and house races went from blue to red Tuesday, Trump didn’t flip any of the towns in the Ledger-Transcript’s coverage area. Trump’s local support is centered in Antrim, Bennington, Greenville, Mason, Rindge, and especially New Ipswich, where he received twice as many votes as Biden.
“New Ipswich, for the time being, is very red, and it hopefully stays that way,” said Bruce Ruotsala outside the polls at the Mascenic high school gym in New Ipswich Tuesday. Ruotsala said he had high hopes for Trump in the election, despite what some nationwide polls might say.
“It’s such a weird year, we have no gauge on it,” Ruotsala said. “We don’t really trust the polls, we don’t really trust sources of information, and we just look around and see record-breaking Trump rallies and parades, and we see a few Biden signs.”
Ruotsala and other local Trump voters cited his Mexican border wall, trade deals, and his push to pack the courts with constructionist judges and Supreme Court justices as the driving forces behind their votes.
Kenneth and Sandra Lehtonen said they’d voted for Trump in 2016 and came out to vote for him again in 2020 with “no hesitation.”
“The Democratic party has gone so far left it’s not even funny,” Kenneth said. “If people want to be socialists, move to another country.”
Peterborough’s as blue as New Ipswich is red; Biden doubled up on Trump in Our Town, where every Democratic candidate on the ticket won big. The crossroads of Routes 101 and 202 have been the visual epicenter of political clashes in town, as the site of weekly protests for racial justice this summer, which were later rivaled by groups of Trump supporters in recent months. Throughout the days leading up to the election, both groups made their presence felt.
Emma Woodhead said she lives right downtown and has driven through the Trump supporters’ gatherings frequently over the past weeks.
“It’s disheartening,” she said. Woodhead and a small group of teens stood opposite the group of MAGA supporters Tuesday evening as the sun dipped low, waving Black Lives Matter signs or in Woodhead’s case, a ‘Ridin’ With Biden’ flag.
“I think the voices of the young people are what we need right now,” Woodhead said. “We’re scared, our rights depend on it, so I’m going to be out here and I’m going to be loud as long as I am able.”
The sheer number of absentee ballots this year means that vote counts in key states are delayed to the point that the race was still too close to call as of press time Wednesday. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Trump took to the airwaves and gave a speech in which he said he’d won the election, but that Democrats were trying to steal it from him by continuing to count the votes, and that he’d take the matter to the Supreme Court. That scenario has been on the mind of many since Trump’s hints that he might not accept the election results and transfer power peacefully if he’s defeated. Vote-counting continues in those states and will continue until the ballots are counted, despite Trump’s claims – labeled by Facebook and Twitter as misleading and false – that the process is somehow fraudulent.
“There is some concern about that,” Hunter said in Francestown, “but I trust that we have the right legal representatives that are gathered…When you put out your state-based laws on how to vote, and everyone knows them, to come back at the 11th hour and make a change is not fair to the electorate, so I think we’ll prevail on most of those challenges.”
On Saturday, Monadnock Rights and Democracy and the Rural Youth Union plan to join other groups around the state and country to hold a “Protect The Results” rally in Peterborough’s Putnam Park at 1 p.m.