GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — Judy Leclerc is a bank officer who has watched the country’s troubles play out across her desk in recent years, with tighter rules putting mortgages out of reach for some families.
Now, headed to the polls in less than two weeks, the 64-year-old will probably cast her vote for Senator Bernie Sanders, a man who, she says, embraces her sense of a political system rigged against everyday Americans.
“I’m frustrated about the suffering and the politicians who are throwing things out there that don’t matter,” Leclerc said.
As Iowa and then New Hampshire prepare to hold the first elections of the campaign, some voters are frustrated about what they call government dysfunction and a political process so paralyzed that it isn’t helping the country move forward. It’s a contrast with the voter ire that was directed at the war in Iraq in 2008 and a lagging economy in 2012.
The frustration emerges not just at rallies for the GOP's controversial front-runner, Donald Trump, but in interviews with voters in Goffstown, Lebanon, and Concord, where they unleash a visceral menu of complaints — even though the state has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation.
“I haven’t had a vacation in 18 years, and I work seven days a week,” said John Crawford, of Concord, who installs blinds for stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s and delivers newspapers from early morning to dawn. He sleeps for a few hours and then heads to the Steeplegate Mall, where he buys a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and checks listings on his iPad for installation jobs.
“I’m totally discouraged. It’s everything. Congress doesn’t get anything done, and people like myself are angry,” Crawford said.
Some 70 percent of respondents in a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll agreed that they “feel angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington, rather than working to help everyday people get ahead.”
The poll’s responses did not divide along party lines or by demographics.
In New Hampshire, voters are funneling frustration into support for insurgent candidates at either end of the political spectrum. On the left, voters have embraced Sanders’ message of economic inequality and a government hijacked by billionaire businessmen. On the right, voters have aligned with Trump’s attacks on immigration and the impotence of elected officials.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist poll released last week showed Trump leading the Republican pack in the state, with 31 percent support from likely voters, and Sanders nearly 19 points above Hillary Clinton.
“They like the anger they hear from Trump,” said Steve Darrow, a Republican state representative who is backing Ohio Governor John Kasich. “There’s lots of anger and frustration and Trump is tapping into that, and Bernie is, too.”
Darrow said he hears a yearning for “somebody to shake things up.”
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said local polling backs up Darrow’s observation: Voters this cycle give high ratings to the insurgent candidates not so much for their policies, but for their calls to overhaul government.
The question, of course, is whether the proclaimed anger is reflected in voters’ choices on Feb. 9, the date of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.
New Hampshire has chosen insurgent candidates in times of peace and economic health, like Senator John McCain in 2000, and it has supported establishment candidates in rockier periods, as in 2012, when the state backed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the midst of a stalled economic recovery.
Pollsters note that some anger is cyclical, with Republican frustration peaking after eight years of the opposing party in the Oval Office.
“Eight years with anyone and people start to get tired,” Paleologos said. “It’s human nature. People want to change it up.”
Nan Legare is in that group. Asked about her emotional temperature as the primary nears, Legare, 64, of Franklin, offered without pause, “I hate Obama.”
In New Hampshire, unemployment is 3.1 percent, nearly two points below the national average. Yet among the candidates, only one is keying off the state’s relative good fortune: Kasich, who is banking on a win here and has stayed away from anger, calling himself the “prince of light and hope.”
At times, he has seemed taken aback by the anger that he hears is out there.
“They didn’t seem angry,” Kasich mused after a town hall in Concord last week. “They seemed like regular people with concerns.”
Remy Hinxhia, one of his likely backers (he believes Kasich can balance the budget but also is considering Hillary Clinton) agreed. “I don’t believe there is any reason to be angry,” said Hinxhia, 43, who owns a real estate company in Concord. “Why should we be angry?”
Kasich is at 11 percent in the New Hampshire polls, including the WSJ/NBC/Marist poll, trailing both Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, another candidate appealing to an angry conservative base.
For some voters, discontent is borne of a sense of narrowing opportunity for their children and grandchildren. Jean Cleverly of Loudon is a law office administrator and her husband, Chum Cleverly, is retired from the public works department in nearby Bow. On a Sunday morning, they were enjoying a moment’s rest on benches at the Steeplegate Mall, thinking about an upcoming trip to Florida.
Asked about the election, they noted that their daughter has struggled to find a job in graphic design since leaving a corporate one, and a grandson recently dropped out of college and joined the Army because he thought he’d have too much student loan debt otherwise.
“He was frustrated,” Jean Cleverly said.
Both she and her husband have already cast absentee ballots for Cruz; they will be in Florida come election day, Feb. 9.
For other voters, there is an additional mounting frustration — a sense that there is overreaction and overcorrection by the insurgents.
“I get angry about Bernie,” said Mary-Ellen Berg, a real estate agent in Bedford who is considering Kasich. “When he says the system is corrupt, that smacks of: All of us who have been working hard every day have been doing it wrong. I resent that.”
Cheryl Staples is a housekeeping supervisor at a nursing home, and her husband is a retired electrician. They struggle on her salary and his Social Security, they said.
He is leaning toward Trump. She is not.
“I don’t seen how anyone’s going to make a difference. Definitely not Trump, “ Staples said.
So who does she like?
“Maybe Bernie Sanders,” she said.
Tracy Jan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Sarah Schweitzer can be reached at sarah.schweitzer@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahSchweitzer.