While some voters packed campaign events and watch parties Tuesday night as election returns started to come in, others stayed a little further from the action.
NHPR’s Annie Ropeik talked to voters at a bar in Rochester and filed this report.
All the TVs above the bar at Rochester's Revolution Taproom were tuned to sports channels as the polls began to close last night. But the election wasn’t far from anyone’s mind.
“Who wouldn’t be thinking about the results? I’m sure everybody’s thinking about the results," said Matt Mirabile, a reverend at a local church.
"I think it would be hard for people to have a disengaged vote at this point.” Mirabile was having a beer with a colleague, Michael McKinnon, after a church meeting. They declined to say how they voted, but McKinnon says turnout at his polling place was clearly high – which he says is good news, regardless of party.
"It means that we’re all participating, and that’s what this country’s all about, right?” he says.
Other patrons were less confident. Scott Drummey sat at the end of the bar with his laptop, refreshing the New York Times homepage. “I wanna see what happens!" he said, laughing.
Drummey is a fruit farmer, a self-described political junkie and a registered independent who says he voted mostly Republican, a little Democratic. He didn’t have high hopes for change, however things went.
“Best case scenario, gridlock is gonna get ten times worse," Drummer said. "Worst case scenario, gridlock is gonna get twenty times worse.”
Beside him, school teacher Bill Crowley was finishing dinner before going home to watch the returns. He says he’s a conservative who supports President Donald Trump.
But whatever the results of the election, he says he’s proud to witness another peaceful transfer of power.
“And hopefully we can hug each other tomorrow and say, 'I love you, come with me, give me two years or four years of chance to prove to you that this works,'” he said. One thing's for sure, he says - there will be another election in two years.
