Local NY & NJ Residents Choose Their Presidential Candidates
It was a day when, beyond all else, New York and its suburbs finally seemed to matter.
Candidates’ supporters stood outside polling stations calling out encouragement to voters who already seemed enlivened by the mood. On one New Jersey Transit train, a conductor got on the public-address system and told commuters, “Exercise your right as an American and vote.”
Breaking free of their traditional political obscurity, voters from around the region flocked to the polls on Tuesday, pouring into churches, community centers and high school gymnasiums. From Coney Island to Connecticut, the polls received a steady stream of voters on a day of winter rain, which in a normal year might have kept them away.
Oddly — at least in a region where a presidential primary is usually a tranquil nonevent — the voters were joined, in certain places, by the candidates themselves. Before flying to California, Senator John McCain held an early-morning rally at Rockefeller Center, where some of his supporters joked that they had never seen so many Republicans in one place in New York. Thirty miles to the north, in Chappaqua, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was mobbed by reporters as she stepped inside Douglas G. Grafflin Elementary School to vote.
“It’s the most exciting presidential race, certainly in my lifetime,” said Mark M. Baker, 60, a lawyer voting in the Bronx.
Perhaps because of the steady drizzle, or because the New York Giants held a parade near City Hall to celebrate their Super Bowl victory, the early turnout at the polls seemed rather light. And despite the energy surrounding the election, there were moments when the day felt strangely quiet in certain city precincts, with poll workers in Chinatown, the Upper East Side, and Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, saying that their stations had been sluggish all morning.
At the Oberia D. Dempsey Multi-Service Center, in Harlem, the voters arrived in singles or in pairs. The empty rows of seats gave the auditorium a drowsy air.
“Every time I vote it’s history for me,” said Aunjanue Ellis, 38, who had voted for Senator Barack Obama. Ms. Ellis, an actress, while admitting it was corny, said that every time she votes, a tear comes to her eye.
This was the first time that Brian and David Cross, 29, twins from the Rockaways in Queens, had voted in a primary. They said they had become interested after watching debates among the Democratic candidates.
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