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Kari
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For those who don’t want to stay home and watch Tuesday evening’s election result on MarketWatch, there are big plans afoot.
Read: Watch out for these last-minute election scams
What some have called the most contentious election in recent history is changing the way people participate in voting day, and how they watch the results come in. Public viewing spots like bars, theaters, and political clubs are preparing events for Tuesday night and voters are split about where to go.
Farah Mehreen Ahmad, a Brooklyn-based Bangladeshi writer said she was seeking a public place to follow the results since she doesn’t have cable and settled on Mayday Bar, which advertises itself as a social justice-oriented community.
“I feel it would be good to watch it with other people and in a place that is progressive, where the people who go there are politically aligned with me,” she said. “This election has been traumatizing on so many levels too, as a woman and as an immigrant, and I just want to be in a place I feel safe.”
Trump supporter Leslie Baum Rossi, of Youngstown, Pa., painted a farmhouse red, white and blue, and erected a 14-foot tall metal cutout of the Republican presidential nominee to raise support for the candidate in the battleground state.
Other party-specific or left-leaning locations are holding parties of their own. In New York City, Planned Parenthood is hosting an event to cheer on Hillary Clinton and the city’s Metropolitan Republican Club is hosting an event for Republican members and friends. The Metropolitan Republican Club has held election night events since its inception in the early 1900s when Theodore Roosevelt was a member, board chairman Ian Reilly said. With polls at 99.8% of New Yorkers supporting Clinton and numerous protests against Donald Trump in New York City, many Republicans feel politically isolated in the liberal-skewing metropolis.
“I think people living in Manhattan feel there are no other Republicans so once they find out there is a Republican stronghold they are excited to join,” he said. “Republicans are much more comfortable coming into this environment rather than going to a bar because they know they are going to be surrounded by other Republicans.
Other venues are positioning themselves as politically neutral, like Syndicated, a Brooklyn-based theater and bar that has seen hundreds of people come out for its screenings of the debates. Their programmer, Brendan O’Donnell, attributed the strong turnout in part to the young, cord cutter demographics of the neighborhood. He said the venue welcomes people of any political leaning but the trendy and largely Latino neighborhood tends to lean liberal.
“We want to function as a neighborhood living room, basically,” he said. “We try to be pretty politically neutral in our social media and things like that, but I cannot imagine there will be much of a mix of viewpoints here since this neighborhood is pretty like-minded.”
Similarly, a bar in Dallas called The People’s Last Stand is hosting a viewing party for people of any political persuasion. Owner Kartik Rathore said they plan to stay open late to catch all of the action, adding that despite the contentious political climate they expect the event to go smoothly.
“We don’t allow guns or weapons on the property but I’m not worried about people getting too belligerent,” he said. “We encourage people to express political opinions since this is a politically-charged event, but if they are being disruptive we won’t tolerate that.”
Many people on both sides of the political spectrum say they would prefer to stay home this year to avoid the stress and public fervor completely. Star Cook, a Dallas woman who voted early for Donald Trump said she plans to stay home and watch the results with her husband. “I would only go to an event with other Trump supporters, and I certainly wouldn’t go to a bar — things would get out of hand with alcohol.”
Jenn Hoffman, a writer who is 8 months pregnant, said she plans to watch results at home because worried the stress of it will send her into early labor. “Seriously,” she said. “My uterus twitches every time Trump speaks.”
Amanda Chapin, a New York City-based Clinton supporter said she feels similarly. She has considered going to a movie to distract herself from the election or just going to bed early to skip the stress of watching results come in altogether.
“I definitely plan on staying in, I have way too much anxiety about what’s going on,” she said. “In previous elections there has been a lot of excitement and build up but with the recent polls and news I am afraid of a bad outcome and can’t be in public.”
For those who, like Chapin, don’t want to witness the chaos in public, a variety of online streaming options exist. CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC will be covering the results live online — and you can follow live blog coverage and, of course, analysis here at MarketWatch, from wherever you choose to be.
I would never....EVER.....want to sit and listen to political hack commentators blather on for hours on end about "New results coming in from XXXXX county!"
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