As the No Kings protest in Manchester swelled on Saturday, Kelly Howard stayed stoic. Howard, a school counselor from Londonderry who these days largely votes Democrat, said there’s a lot going on in the world she’d like to change — and doing so will likely take good people in both parties to commit to working together.
"Get rid of all the hatred," she said. "There is a lot of hate in the world.”
And while Howard said she’d like to believe that’s possible, when she considers the New Hampshire leaders best positioned to do that, she doesn't like what she sees.
“Maggie Hassan? I’m kind of wishy-washy on her," Howard said. "Kelly Ayotte? I’m not a fan.”
The war in Iran, high costs of living, political dysfunction: All are weighing on voters here as New Hampshire heads into campaign season. And according to a recent Emerson College poll, every top elected official in the state — Democrats and Republicans, from the White House to the governor's office to Congress — has a negative approval rating. In fact, that bipartisan unpopularity may be the only thing many voters can agree upon these days.
Further up Elm Street at Saturday's rally, Mike and Kelly Wolf — he’s a federal worker, she has a job in insurance — said they are angry about the war in Iran, and what they see as weak resistance to President Trump from Democrats. They are also frustrated by the way top elected officials seem out of touch with the everyday problems people like them face.
"That’s a real problem," Kelly Wolf said. "You don't have anyone who are actual parents, or out there in the workforce, trying to buy a home for the first time, or trying to afford healthcare, so the people out there representing us are not really us."
"What don’t people like about our politics? People don’t like that people seem to be enriching themselves while not helping people that are struggling," Mike Wolf added. "Our politicians seem to be doing that."
Related: ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to': Protestors attend No Kings rallies across NH
The idea that New Hampshire’s current leaders either can’t be trusted or are too enmeshed with monied interests was apparent at protests across the state. Joe Rogers, a financial planner from Lyndeborough who joined the No Kings rally in Concord, said he’s far too disillusioned by the state's representatives in Washington to vote for any of them.
"I wish there was a third party, because the Democratic Party is so corrupt right now," he said. "Democrats need to start representing true constituents and not just super large donors.”
Kali Fyre, a Unitarian minister from Manchester, said she too has reached a breaking point with the state's political class.
"I keep getting all of the text messages [asking for] for two dollars, and I'm like, 'I'm not going to send you money until you start doing stuff,'" she said.
Fyre said her faith will always make her optimistic that things can change for the better. But she said that's hard when leaders don't act with the moral clarity she believes the moment requires.
"There is so much negotiation and moderateness when people are being harmed, people are dying, and we don't put people first," Fyre said. "We put politics first, we put game-playing first, we put 'what I can get from you' first."
This pervasive voter frustration may become a top order of business for candidates running for office this fall.
NHPR's Jackie Harris contributed reporting.
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