There could be positive signs for Kamala Harris in the quaint New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch, which traditionally votes first in the nation at a few minutes after midnight.
The result was still a tie, and it’s way too early to draw any firm conclusions, but out of the tiny voting pool of six people, four were registered as Republicans and just two as Democrats. One of the Republicans switched sides to vote for the VP.
Harris will hope that she can repeat the trick and win over hundreds of thousands of other wavering Republican voters nationwide in what the polls are indicating is the closest U.S. election in 50 years.
ADVERTISEMENT
The count—which represents the first result of the 2024 election—was announced 12 minutes past midnight: three votes for the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and three for the Republican, former president Donald Trump.
“I didn’t see that coming,” local voter Scott Maxwell told The New York Times. He told the paper he decided to vote for Trump just a few hours before the results were announced.
The 3-3 tie indicates we are in for a long day—or days—ahead as the voting and then the counting continues across the country.
After $10 billion dollars blown on campaign advertising and 10 billion words blustered semi-coherently at Trump rallies, Election Day has kicked off with a dead-heat.
It turns out the six residents of Dixville Notch are just as hopelessly divided as the rest of the country.
The unincorporated township, located less than 15 miles from the Canadian border, is famous for opening and closing its polling location just minutes after the clock strikes 12, allowing the handful of eligible voters in the sparsely populated area to cast their ballots.
Despite the Lilliputian sample size, the tally aligns with national and swing state polls that show a statistical tie, with both major party candidates tracking each other within the margin of error.
Even in the recluse quiet of New Hampshire‘s white pines and balsam fir, no one can escape the partisan divide.
Dixville Notch’s midnight voting tradition goes back to 1960 in what was essentially a shameless publicity stunt by a local resort owner. The Balsams hotel and ski resort was established as the local polling location, and the midnight curiosity drew in journalists who provided free advertising.
The clever gimmick has always elided the fact that millions of votes have already been cast by the time Dixville Notch announces its results—79 million in mail-in and early votes this year.
The Balsams resort closed in 2011, taking jobs with it and leading to a dwindling local population, but its Ballot Room still serves as the polling location and the tradition continues.
Officials in two other New Hampshire towns that traditionally held midnight voting—Millsfield and Hart’s Location—opted to give up the bit this year and act hold regular daytime voting hours.
Although it’s often held up as a bellwether, the Dixville Notch result, shouldn‘t really be taken as anything other than a handful of votes that don’t really suggest anything.
In 2020, President Joe Biden received five voters to Trump’s zero, his 100 percent support significantly beating the 52% he got statewide. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump four to two—with Gary Johnson and Mitt Romney each getting one vote—and of course went on to lose the election.
The last time the tiny township–which was memorably fictionalized as “Hartsfield’s Landing” on an episode of The West Wing–tied was in 2012 when Barack Obama and Romney each got five votes.
