Tuesday, November 07, 2006

What are we learning....

I've been at this a litle more than eight hours now, talking with dozens and dozens of voters. So what have we learned?

Turnout is amazing - everywhere. The average turnout for a non-presidential year is 58 percent. That figure will be easily broken today.

Voters are taking this election personally. They have a personal stake, and this is important. More often than not, voters have told me that the driving motivation for them today is the need to change the direction the country is headed.

But yet, how they're voting doesn't always reflect that.

For example, Andrew Pelletier of Salem, a registered Democrat, told me that is not happy at all with the way the country is going. And he believes it is "very important" to change Congress.

But in the US Senate race, Pelletier voted for the 18-year incumbent, Joe Lieberman. And in the US Congressional race, he voted for Democratic challenger Joe Courtney - and against the six-year incumbent U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons.

"It does seem a little contradictory," he said. "A lof it, I guess, is personal choice."

Cathy Holden of Norwich, a registered unaffiliated voter, also said changing direction - and in particular the Iraq War - was "the big reason" for her voting today. But she voted Lieberman and Simmons - the two incumbents their respective opponents have accused of supporting the Bush Administration's war.

Holden said she supported both incumbents because of the work they did to save the Groton submarine base, and she is hopeful that Democrats will take back control of Congress - she's just hoping that change comes from elsewhere in the country.

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