This New Hampshire voter's mission is to see every presidential candidate in person
BEDFORD, N.H. - Cheri Schmitt keeps her to-do list of more than 20 names on a dry-erase board on the refrigerator in her Bedford, N.H., home. Joe Biden. Kamala Harris. Elizabeth Warren. Bernie Sanders.
Schmitt, 56, is an elementary school teacher, and the number of Democrats running for president this year is larger than the average size of her classes. But she's decided to see every single candidate - in person.
Like many New Hampshire residents, the Democrat is an eager participant in the state's influential primary election. After Iowa's caucuses in February, New Hampshire holds the first primary vote, which means candidates have campaigned here relentlessly, in town halls and sometimes living rooms, courting undecided voters like Schmitt.
Schmitt, who is restlessly inquisitive, loves seeing the candidates up close, watching their campaigns evolve as they graduate from awkwardly shaking hands in diners to running stadium-filling victory machines. And she views her job as helping the candidates become more perfect versions of themselves.
Which is how Cheri and her husband, Karl, a quiet, 66-year-old retired civil servant, ended up in the coastal city of Portsmouth on a Friday night this spring, an hour's drive from home, in a bar whose brick walls were plastered with campaign signs that said "MATH." The Schmitts and more than 100
