By the end of the night, a Democratic politician will (likely) claim victory in New Hampshire, the small New England state home to less than 1.5 million Americans, which holds the first-in-nation primary. Although campaigns will quickly move on to the next batch of primary states tomorrow, it has been a wild year for New Hampshirites as masses of people, including the candidates themselves, headed to the Granite State to get ready for today.
"There's a joke that says 'how can I vote for someone for president if I've only met them two to three times?'" Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs told Cheddar. "There's some truth to that."
Like most early voting states, a victory doesn't guarantee a long-term triumph. Just ask Bernie Sanders who cinched the New Hampshire primary in 2016 and lost the first-in-nation Iowa caucuses, by the smallest margin in the contest's history, only to lose the nomination.
However, winning the primary gives candidates a boost, and since no candidates dropped out of the race after Iowa for the first time since 2004, the Granite State may have a lasting effect.
Caswell's office is on Concord's Main Street, directly above Revelstoke Coffee which attracts a younger audience and seems to appeal to campaign staffers who put temporary roots down in preparation for the primary.
Those staffers, along with the candidates and journalists who pop into town in the run-up to voting, tend to take over the location — and order a lot of coffee.
"I always know there's a candidate down there [in the coffee shop] because it's really quiet," Caswell said. "It suddenly gets quiet down there and all of a sudden you'll hear a lot of applause and laughter."
The coffee shop's owner Alex Stoyle said entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar have yielded the largest crowds during this campaign season.
Stoyle and co-owner Lyndsey Cole have welcomed between 12-15 candidates since one-time 2020 hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand hosted an event in February 2019. Some campaigns hold officially sanctioned events there, but other candidates just wander in off the street.
"They mostly go for the decaf," Stoyle told Cheddar. "I'd say the most common drink among [candidates] is a decaf Americano."
Revelstoke Coffee opened just over a year ago and was off and running just in time for the primary season. Candidates may clog up the shop for a bit of time, Stoyle said, but the campaigns tend to be "very conscious of the fact that it is a disruption in our normal day." He added that it's a "welcome disruption," except the one candidate, Stoyle would not name, who flaked.
"He was one of the big four, I'll say," Stoyle said.
<i>Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand with Revelstoke owners Alex Stoyle and Lyndsey Cole / Revelstoke Coffee</i>
"Most people here welcome the ability to sort of spend time with a lot of these candidates," Caswell said.
Stoyle agreed, saying it's a "painfully New Hampshire thing."
"An easy way to narrow it down is to say 'We're only going to vote for someone who comes and visits us,'" he said.
More than 40 percent of state voters are registered independents and though only 24 delegates are up for grabs, victory can help candidates who may be struggling in the polls. Tonight's primary is expected to run more smoothly than last week's Iowa caucuses, largely because it's run by the state government instead of political volunteers and the state is using paper ballots, rather than the new app that had been used in Iowa.
"The role that New Hampshire plays is one that is always welcome to being reviewed and questioned by the people who make these decisions, but from my standpoint, we take the role pretty seriously and understand New Hampshire isn't as diverse as other states," Caswell said of the state's population which is 93 percent white. "There are a multitude of ways to address that, but here in New Hampshire you have to really campaign with people in their living rooms."
Stoyle said he and his friends have treated this year's primary as a chance to vote for the person they really believe in — and have met.
Politicians, staff, and media will clear out of the state's capital as soon as someone declares victory and, when that happens, "I think the thing we'll miss the most are the staffers," Stoyle said.
Though he doesn't call himself a "big, big political guy," when asked if he pays attention, he laughed. "Oh, of course, I'm from New Hampshire so I take it very seriously."
After the Chicago teachers union voted to work remotely due to what they say is a lack of safety protocols amid the COVID-19 surge, the school system canceled classes on Wednesday, citing harm that remote learning has done to the city's children. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, joined Cheddar to discuss the issues surrounding the latest dispute between educators and schools. She said that the return to in-person learning would likely be halted until more COVID tests could be provided for districts. "This is a terrible situation for everybody, and we need the testing, and we need the masks," she said. "It's the omicron surge that has created this disruption, and we are trying to do the best we can. And this is the only school district that has this kind of action right now." The teachers might not be returning to their schools for at least two weeks amid the ongoing tensions.
Illinois State Senator Robert Martwick joins Cheddar News to discuss the new bill he co-sponsored allowing students in the state to take 5 mental health days without a doctor's note.
On Monday, President Biden announced his new plan to take on inflation by taking down the big meat monopolies - turning to the federal government's antitrust authorities to investigate the major meatpackers that control a significant share of the market. The White House plans to devote one billion dollars to aiding independent meat and poultry producers in an effort to undercut the few powerful meat producers that have control of the sector. Austin Frerick, deputy director of Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
As the pandemic drags on, so does the widespread great resignation. In November alone, 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs, marking a new record high, and showing a 9 percent jump from the month prior. On the flip side, the number of people filing tax paperwork to start new businesses is surging, with over 430,000 new businesses launching in November. Rhett Buttle, the founder of Public Private Strategies and national business advisor to the Biden for President campaign, joined Wake Up with Cheddar to discuss.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is ramping up a civil investigation into The Trump Organization. The AG's office has subpoenaed Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. They have refused to comply with the subpoenas. Bradley Moss, national security attorney, joins Cheddar News to discuss the next steps in this investigation.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has officially reduced the 110-year prison sentence of truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos to 10 years, calling the initial lengthy sentence “unjust.” Dan Gilleon, constitutional attorney at Gilleon Law Firm APC, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Former Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was sworn in as the newest Mayor of New York City. Adams is now expected to work on a number of issues such as crime and coronavirus. Erin Durkin,, reporter at PoliticoNY, joins Cheddar News to discuss more.
California's new composting law will affect what residents do in their kitchens. As of this week, Californians will have to recycle excess food in an effort to reduce emissions caused by food waste. Cities and counties will turn recycled food into compost or use it as a renewable energy source. California's new law is the largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program in the country. Rachel Wagoner, Director of the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery called the law 'the biggest change to trash' since recycling started in the 1980s. She joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
As the U.S. comes up on the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection.,A.C. Thompson, investigative reporter at ProPublica, joined Cheddar's Baker Machado to discuss updates to American Insurrection by FRONTLINE, ProPublica and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. The documentary investigates the attack on the Capitol touched off by the lie that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump but with new information gleaned since the event including interviews with lawmakers and law enforcement and the evolution of groups like the Boogaloo Boys and the Proud Boys behind the attack. "In some ways those groups that were kind of the vanguard of January 6 are maybe no longer relevant because their message is everywhere," he said.
