An 82-year-old one-time school custodian says he's voting for Donald Trump even though "I hate to say it." A 60-year-old woman, freshly retired from 3M, is enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton and frightened by the alternative. A 33-year-old mom of three wants in her heart to vote Libertarian, but her head says Clinton. A 20-year-old student, an aspiring dentist, is excited to vote for the first time but can't make up his mind.
Welcome to Lake Elmo, in the heart of the Twin Cities' politically divided Washington County. It's a sort of small town in the suburbs, and voters in this east metro city of just over 8,000 people have consistently split their presidential choices nearly straight down the middle. Now that this endlessly eventful, impossible-to-predict presidential election of 2016 heads for the history books — no matter the outcome — the responsibility shifts to voters like these, in battleground communities all over the country.
Predictably, they're split.
"I hate to say it, but Trump," said Joel Eder, one of a small crowd inside the Lake Elmo Barber Shop on Lake Elmo Ave. Noting his family roots in this town date to 1857, Eder explains his own political affinities with this dated reference: "I started out as a Democrat. I was rather disappointed when Stevenson was not elected." (Adlai Stevenson was the losing candidate for president in 1952 and 1956.)
His decision was motivated by distrust of Clinton, Eder said. But he's not the only old-timer in town who's still on a journey across the political spectrum. Paul Ryberg, 73, started as an "Eisenhower Republican" but now sees the Democrat as the only responsible choice.
"Hillary is pretty much all that's left," Ryberg said.
This year's presidential race has revealed deep divisions in America's political sympathies. National polls in this final stretch before Election Day have Clinton clinging to a small lead; the weekend brought barnstorming swings by both candidates and top surrogates in a small number of swing states most likely to tip the outcome.
Minnesota, reliably Democratic in presidential years and not a top focus this year for Trump or Clinton, was seeing little personal attention from the presidential contest. Competitive congressional and legislative elections brought a last burst of political activity by down-ballot candidates, volunteers and prominent state politicians not up for election this year, targeting dwindling numbers of undecided voters.