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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Obama, Trump hold rallies in New Hampshire preceding Election Day

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President Barack Obama rallied voters for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton yesterday at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore Center Arena. New Hampshire is considered a critical piece of the electoral map by both Democrats and Republicans, Obama said during the rally.

“There are some scenarios where [Clinton] doesn't win if she doesn't win New Hampshire," Obama said.

After being introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Governor Maggie Hassan, Obama lauded Clinton for her long history in public life. However, much of his speech was spent criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Audience members responded to the president’s characterizations of Trump with jeers, and Obama reminded the crowd, “Don’t boo, vote!” - a common sentiment expressed in Obama’s recent stump speeches.

The event was Obama's final major public appearance of the 2016 campaign cycle. He reminisced about his long-shot 2008 candidacy, when he said he was “a skinny guy with a funny name.”

But Obama made clear that this rally was about more than looking back. He reminded the audience of approximately 15,000 that it had a job to complete on Tuesday.

“The fate of our democracy depends on what you do when you step into that voting booth tomorrow,” Obama said. “It depends on whether you're telling your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, that they have to vote.”

Later that night, Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence held a rally together at Manchester, NH, according to sophomore Adam Rapfogel, who attended the event.

The event was held in the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) arena, and according to Trump, 28,000 people were in attendance, Rapfogel said. The SNHU arena seats 11,700 people.

At the rally, Trump repeated some of the controversial lines that have come to define his candidacy. He charged Clinton as being the “most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States;” lamented that in black communities, "it's so bad you can't walk down to the store without being shot;" and said that Massachusetts “is represented by Pocahontas" because its senator, Elizabeth Warren, has Cherokee ancestry.

Trump was confident about the Election Day returns, according to Rapfogel.

“We will win tomorrow. We are going to drain the swamp,” he said.