A viral video out of New Hampshire shows an older man cursing at, flipping off, and then striking a young Turning Point USA volunteer at a polling place on Election Day, according to RedState, which first reported on the clip. The video has been circulating rapidly on social media.
According to RedState's account, the man approached the TPUSA volunteer manning the group's election outreach booth. The video begins after the two had already been debating an unknown topic — the subject of that argument is not specified in the reporting. What the video shows is the older man jabbing a finger in the young volunteer's face and saying aggressively, "You have no idea who I am, so how dare you say I don't know much?"
The volunteer responds that the man hadn't "provided a single statistic" to back up his point. The older man then screams: "Neither have you! G*d d*mn! I cannot believe that b*lls*it!"
"You sit there and dare to look me in the face and say I don't know anything. That's what I know. F**k you!"
At that point, per RedState, the man sticks his middle finger in the young volunteer's face and then backhands him across the chin. The volunteer and bystanders try to confront him, but the man walks off. Not the Bee, which also covered the clip, says it sounds like police were called.
Several details are not yet established. RedState reported that the precise location of the incident is unknown, and it is not yet known whether police were called or whether any charges have been filed. It is not known what the two were debating before the recording started, what the volunteer said to provoke the finger-jabbing, or whether the two had any prior interaction. No name for the man has been released, and it is not known whether he was at the polling place to vote or for another reason. Next News Network has not independently verified the video or identified either person.
The incident came as New Hampshire voters decided one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. RedState reports that Republican John E. Sununu was battling Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Republicans were hoping to flip the Democrat-held seat, and Turning Point Action — the political arm affiliated with TPUSA — made the Granite State a major focus of its Election Day turnout operation.
The same day, things were considerably calmer elsewhere in New Hampshire: NFL great Rob Gronkowski stopped by some TPUSA locations and took photos with fans, per RedState.
The clip is the kind of scene that TPUSA organizers say their volunteers increasingly face at public tabling events. A young person in a red shirt, standing behind a folding table, getting screamed at by an adult twice — or three times — his age, is now a routine hazard of political organizing.
Our Take
Let's be clear about what the video shows. An adult man lost an argument, flipped out, flipped off a kid, and then put hands on him. Whatever the two were debating, there is no version of this where the older guy is the sympathetic figure. He made his point with his palm, and now his face is on every conservative feed in the country. Hope the argument was worth it.
The backdrop matters here, and RedState drew the connection plainly: the man is "straight out of central casting" for a local No Kings chapter. That's the outlet's characterization, not a confirmed fact about the man's politics — nobody has established anything about his affiliations, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. But the behavior fits a pattern Granite Staters saw all cycle: Democrat-aligned groups spent months telling their voters that young conservative organizers are the enemy, and this is where that rhetoric lands — a teenager taking a backhand to the chin while standing next to a folding table.
Note what did not happen. The volunteer didn't swing back. He kept his hands down while getting cursed at and hit. TPUSA put those kids out there to talk to voters, take photos with Gronkowski, and make the case for Sununu in the tightest race in the state, and one of them ended Election Day as the victim of a battery that may or may not have produced a police report. It is not yet known whether charges were filed. It should not be hard to figure out who this man is, and Granite Staters deserve to know whether their local police are treating an assault on a teenage volunteer as a real crime.
Meanwhile, thousands of young TPUSA volunteers spent Tuesday working polling locations across New Hampshire and the country without incident, because the work of persuasion is boring, patient, and mostly civil. The other side's version of persuasion is now a viral video of a grown man's backhand. Patriots, keep the footage. This is what the other side does when it loses arguments — and this cycle, it looks like it may be losing more than that.
