‘A campaign I can, like, fully, wholeheartedly support.’ Harris team gets a warm welcome.

Doug Emhoff told a crowd in Concord Wednesday that his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, is the only presidential candidate who will protect reproductive health rights. (Annmarie Timmins | New Hampshire Bulletin)

Voters Meg Locker, Joseph Reidy, and Shideko Terai traveled different journeys to a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Concord Wednesday.

Locker, 27, was actively but “a bit reluctantly” supporting President Joe Biden for a second term when he withdrew from the race on July 21. Reidy, 70, was an enthusiastic Biden backer who felt the president was forced out of a second term he could have won. As a Biden volunteer, Terai, 71, watched voters struggle with questions about the electability of a president she respects.

Each now identifies as an enthusiastic, all-in Harris supporter. They were among the few hundred Harris backers who came to the IBEW Local 490 office Wednesday to hear from Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff.

“I kind of felt like a breath of fresh air as a young woman in New Hampshire (when Biden stepped down), and I was like, ‘Absolutely, this is a campaign I can, like, fully, wholeheartedly support,’” said Locker, of Pembroke. “I think there’s this energy and a resurgence and being excited for voting again. I think a lot of people my age were a little frustrated that this year is kind of duplicating what we saw in 2020 and there was almost like no hope. But with Harris running, it’s like, OK, there could be some change.”

Emhoff and several other Democrats who spoke Wednesday described the next election, from the top of the ticket down, as decisive for access to reproductive health care.

They noted that New Hampshire is alone in New England in not protecting the rights to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception. They pointed to a recent Republican-backed bill that would have banned abortion after 15 days, something few Republicans in the Legislature supported.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade , with help from justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, was high on the list, too.

“What we really have is a stark choice between a life of freedom, fundamental rights, progress, moving forward, a place for all of us,” Emhoff said, reminding the crowd that Supreme Court justices serve for life. “So who’s going to pick those next Supreme Court justices? Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?”

The crowd was loud and unified: “Harris!”

Terai, of Cornish, arrived at the rally wearing a shirt that read “Brass Ovaries,” and “Vote.” Protecting the right to abortion and other health care are priorities for her.

As the co-chair of the New Hampshire Asian American & Pacific Islander Democratic caucus, Terai said Harris, who would be the first Black and Asian American president, offers her something that not even Biden could.

“You know, we’re just so excited to have a woman as a president that looks like us,” she said.

Reidy, a former union worker from Kensington, never doubted Biden’s ability to serve as president or win another term. Age didn’t force him out, he said, party pressure did.

“I’m very impressed with what he got done,” said Reidy. “Everyone talks about what they would like to do but they are not acknowledging the Congress that he was up against and what he got done against that. That’s what I feel is impressive.”

Reidy hopes Harris will reach out to what he called the “fence sitters,” voters who don’t know her and have not made up their minds. Asked what those voters need to hear, Reidy had a suggestion.

“That it’s less about me, Kamala Harris, and it’s more about us and what we need,” he said. “So please don’t think of it as voting for me. Think of it as voting for the country.”

He worries too that Republicans’ knock on Harris’ laugh could sway voters who’ve seen it ridiculed in internet memes without knowing about her work as former attorney general and U.S. senator and current vice president.

“I don’t want to say this, but sometimes her excitement worries me,” he said. “It’s like a kid in a candy store. It doesn’t affect her voters at all, but the people on the fence might not view her as serious.”

Standing next to Reidy, Randall Walden, 77, of Manchester, was wearing a shirt supporting Harris – and an old pin supporting the Equal Rights Amendment. Walden had no complaints with Biden – and now he has none with Harris.

“Even though I was so loyal to him, I think we would have had trouble,” he said.

Alisa Dooley, 27, of Wakefield, was “leaning” toward voting for Biden but wasn’t excited about it. Harris delivers the excitement he didn’t, she said.

“I think she really represents a lot of the great things about America,” Dooley said. “She’s a strong political candidate in that I’m looking for someone who knows how to compromise but also who knows how to take a stand.”

When Harris took Biden’s spot in the race, Dooley began hearing from her friends. “It’s so monumental that this has happened, more people want to know what’s going on and actually be involved,” she said. “I would say the switch to Harris has really brought a lot of energy.”

The switch to Harris has also energized older voters.

Kathy Downes, 70, of Dunbarton, volunteered with the Harris campaign the day after Biden endorsed her. She was an unapologetic Biden supporter but having a female candidate was especially exciting, she said.

Downes texted a friend photos from the rally Wednesday, including one of a poster that said, “Run like a girl. Kamala for president.” In her message, Downes told her friend she was thankful to have arrived in time to get a seat.

The friend replied, “You go lady!” In a second message, Downes’ friend referenced a 2021 comment from J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, about the country being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies.”

She asked Downes, “Did you save a seat for a cat?”