Undecided voters tap into campaigns at Presidential Primary Tavern Night in Peterborough

Voters at the Presidential Primary Tavern Nights event at Post & Beam Brewery in Peterborough Thursday night said the electability of a candidate is at the top of their list.

“It’s which one I think has the best chance of winning,” said Gene Anderson of Rindge at the event.

But in an overly crowded race and with the New Hampshire primary quickly approaching, many voters have yet to land on just who that candidate is.

“There’s so many people who haven’t made up their minds,” said undecided independent voter Gretchen Ziegler of Harrisville. “It’s the same thing that we had four years ago with so many candidates. If you’ve got two or three it’s easier to decide. But when you’ve got 20, there are just so many factors and how do you narrow it down?”

Representatives from nine presidential campaigns took advantage of an opportunity to engage voters at the Thursday night event. The presidential primary campaigns were invited to send one representative that could talk one-on-one with voters and answer questions about their candidate.

The candidates are not invited to the tavern night events, but an exception was made at the Peterborough event for little-known Republican candidate Matt Matern, a California attorney running who is in the Republican primary against President Donald Trump. His was the only Republican campaign at the event. Democratic candidates Colorado Senator Michael Bennet and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick sent their wives to represent them. Campaigns for former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Maryland Congressman John Delaney sent representatives. Delaney dropped out of the race the following day.

Peterborough woman Mandy Sliver, assistant director of Leadership New Hampshire, organized the event with help from the event sponsors – the Peterborough chapter of the League of Women Voters, No Labels and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.

Sliver said she was motivated to organize a Tavern Night event in Peterborough as someone who is an undecided voter who wants to cut through the campaign hype of a town hall and just learn more about the candidates.

Anderson, a registered Democrat, said he came to the event as an undecided voter but left after only talking to Patrick’s wife, Diane Patrick. It was too noisy for someone who wears hearing aids, like him, he said.

He said while he supports “universal healthcare” his number one issue is electability. “I’m still considering who is the best shot to take Donald Trump out of the White House.”

Janine Lesser of Peterborough said she has already cast her vote for Vice President Joe Biden. “My husband’s undecided, but I wasn’t sure I’d be back in time on the eleventh so I voted absentee.”

“I’m a Biden girl,” Lesser said. “I think he’s got the best chance of winning, like the Midwestern and Southern states. I trust him, I think he has a lot of integrity, and think he’s got a lot of experience.”

After listening to the impeachment trial all week, Lesser said, the Democratic nominee has to win and has to know what they are doing. “I think somebody’s going to have to walk in on day one and they are going to have a huge job to do.”

Rick Lesser, her husband, said he has narrowed his picks down but wanted to come to Thursday night’s event to talk it out some more.

“We need a Democrat in the White House. That’s number one, improve our standing in the world and I’m a fan of universal healthcare,” Rick Lesser said.

“People are undecided,” Eric Jackman of Peterborough said. “People are really serious about beating Donald Trump. New Hampshire’s got to get this right.”

Jackman was at the event representing Gabbard, who he thinks will do better than people expect in the New Hampshire primary due to her appeal to independents and Republicans. “Yang’s in that same boat. … There’s a lot of crossover with Tulsi and Yang and Bernie people where we’re looking for an outsider. We’re looking for someone who can go outside of the box and need to pull Trump voters onto our team.”

Jackman said he got behind Gabbard because she supports redirecting our resources away from war and back to helping American citizens. “My pitch is very simple. What could New Hampshire do with an extra billion dollars a year? Cause we’re spending $50 billion dollars a year in Afghanistan. To what end? … Imagine what New Hampshire could do to battle the opioid epidemic with an extra billion dollars. That resonates with people and cuts across left and right and party divide.”

Matern, an attorney from California, said he is running for meaningful tax cuts for the middle class, reducing the deficit and making climate change a Republican issue again. The Republican party once championed environmental issues, Matern said, and now members who want to combat climate change have no voice in the GOP.

“I believe that climate change is real and we need to take decisive action to stop it,” Matern said. “The environment used to be a bipartisan issue. … Trump has really broke that tradition in a really horrible way.”

Matern said he has been spending a lot of time in New Hampshire and is finding support from “independent voters and centrist Republicans that feel disaffected by the party, who are upset with what Trump has done.”

Bennet’s wife Susan said her husband jumped into the Democratic primary because “he felt like the Democratic conversation was starting in a place that wasn’t going to carry Colorado” and despite his lack of name recognition he feels he can come to an early state like New Hampshire and make those one-on-one connections with voters.

“He’s not flashy,” she said. “He’s a workhorse, not a show horse. … The deep conversations here play to his favor.”

Steven Borne of Rye, who is also the author of “Consuming Government,” created the Tavern Nights event. You can learn more about Presidential Primary Taverns online at Borne’s website www.consumegov.com.