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 others had shown up to hear a tech entrepreneur named Andrew Yang explain why he should be the most powerful person in the world.
Every candidate means every candidate.
"We'll have to find out what the 'MATH' signs are for," Cheri told Karl, as some older voters milled around with beers and several younger ones looked at their phones.
While waiting, Cheri and Karl chatted with Steven Borne, 55, about their quest to see the candidates. "My 15-year-old is doing the same thing," said Borne, who then called out across the bar. "Sam! They're doing the same thing also!" Sam and Steven were planning to see Democratic candidate and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney the next morning, at "the pancake thing."
This is life in New Hampshire in this wide-open Democratic presidential contest: There's always a breakfast thing, a brewery thing, a community center thing, another senator or governor who's showed up in somebody's backyard down the street with a small entourage and something to say.
When Yang arrived, he was wearing a "MATH" hat and an American flag scarf, and he made his pitch with the self-deprecating deadpan of a stand-up comedian: "The opposite of Donald Trump is what we need, and the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math!" As she often does with candidates, Cheri positioned herself up front and started shooting video with her cellphone, which she'd share with friends later.
Yang revealed what "MATH" stood for: "Make America think harder!"
The crowd laughed. "Definitely much funnier than I anticipated," Cheri said afterward. But had Yang won Cheri and Karl's votes that night? "Absolutely not," she said later.
Yang was the first of six candidates they would go see over four days. More than two dozen Democrats had entered the race since the Schmitts made their see-everyone pact.
But Yang's platform, which centers around fears of automation taking workers' jobs, stuck with Cheri. As Karl pulled their SUV out of the garage, Cheri noticed a ticket-taking machine at the exit _ doing a job humans used to do. "Automation, right there," Cheri said. The outsider candidate's message had sunk in.
