Harris and Trump tie 3-3 in first-in-the-nation midnight vote in Dixville Notch, NH

We kick off Uncharted Blue's election coverage with a report on the first votes cast in the 2024 presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have tied with 3 votes each in the tiny New Hampshire township of Dixville Notch, located near the U.S.-Canada border.

Now Dixville Notch has a spotty record of predicting the winner of the contest for New Hampshire's four electoral votes and the national race..

In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden swept the early vote in Dixville Notch by a 5-0 margin.

In January's Republican primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley won all six votes cast by four registered Republicans and two independents.

Since 1960, all eligible voters in Dixville Notch have gathered in the "Ballot Room" at the now-dormant The Balsams resort to cast their ballots once polls open at midnight. The votes are tallied and the results announced hours before anywhere else in the country.

In previous elections, two other small New Hampshire towns – Millsfield and Hart’s Location – had midnight voting. But this year, both towns decided not to do so, according to CNN.

Lee Otten, one of the Dixville Notch voters, is the lead developer for a project that is expected to break ground next summer to revive the resort.

CNN quoted the 75-year-old Otten as saying that he has been “a Republican ever since I was seven years old.” He told CNN before Tuesday’s vote that he would cast his ballot for Harris.

“Nowhere in the Pledge of Allegiance does it say anything about pledging your allegiance to a person,” Otten said. “And I think at the end of the day, Trump has made it clear that you need to pledge allegiance to him, and he alone can fix this, and that is as anti-democratic as I can understand.”