ONCE UPON A TIME, Cindi Johnson was rooting for Barry Goldwater to win the presidency, drawn to his hawkish views on the war in Vietnam. “I just wanted to see it brought to an end, one way or another,” she says.

In the years that followed, she voted against Richard Nixon but for Ronald Reagan. One time she voted Libertarian. She voted for George W. Bush in 2000, but went for John Kerry four years later. She then voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and Deval Patrick in 2010. She’s leaning toward Obama again this year.