With less than 24 hours until the New Hampshire presidential primary, Lester Reed put on his Nikki Haley shirt, his Nikki Haley baseball hat with his “NH loves NH” pin and lined up outside the Franklin VFW Post to see his favorite candidate in his home city.

It was the sixteenth time Reed, 77, said he had seen Haley since she launched her campaign in February of 2023, including her first town hall in Exeter. He has a slideshow of photos on his phone of Haley rallies and sings along to the songs in her event playlist. And up against the barricade in the front row of her meet and greet event, he shifted over to make room for others to get a good view of the candidate he hopes will be the first female president in U.S. history.

“It’s about time we got a woman in there to straighten this damn country out, straighten some of these men out,” he said. “I want to see somebody who is going to work for us. The men that have been in there they are controlling the country, but they are not working for the people. I feel that she is. She is going to work for the people.”

In her final pitch to Franklin voters, Haley spoke to a packed house alongside Governor Chris Sununu and New Hampshire’s Commissioner of Labor Ken Merrifield, who also served for nearly a decade as the Mayor of Franklin.

After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign on Sunday, voters became hyper-focused on the top two candidates in the race, Haley and former President Donald Trump, who has a wide base of support among top Republicans despite lingering charges in court. A UNH poll released this weekend shows Trump leading among likely GOP voters, with Haley much more popular among undeclared voters. 

As the last remaining rival of Trump, the outcome of the New Hampshire primary remains pivotal for the future of Haley’s campaign.

“It’s been almost a year that we’ve been campaigning in this great state, touching every hand, answering every question, being the last person to leave,” she said. “Your decision tomorrow is do we want more of the same? Or do we want a new generation?”

On Monday in the state’s smallest city – that will soon be home to a new 15-acre veterans campus – Haley hit a personal note in talking about her husband Michael, who is currently deployed, for voters like Irene Klink.

Klink, 83, who lives up the road from the VFW Post in Franklin, is a retired military spouse. She raised six kids and watched five of them serve the country. Now her grandchildren are doing the same.

To see Haley speak for the first time in person, Klink put on her favorite jacket – a blue zip-up with a U.S. Department of Defense emblem on it. In the last election, she voted for Trump. Now, the question of why she’s supporting Haley instead seems rhetorical.

“Are you kidding,” she said. “She’s amazing.”

As a military family, Klink has listened to years of rhetoric surrounding wars and waited for family members to return home.

“It’s tough,” she said. “They call us warmongers, but it’s not true. Nobody wants peace more than us.”

That’s a message that Haley echoed when talking about her support for the country’s military and the need to invest in mental health and medical services for veterans.

“Strong militaries don’t start wars, strong militaries prevent wars,” said Haley. “We can’t just love our men and women when they’re gone. We got to love them when they come back home too.”

It’s the same reason that Deb Berube, who has family in the military and is involved with the VFW Post, came to see Haley speak. The impact of her message hits home for voters in Franklin, she said.

“She knows what it’s like to be a veteran’s wife,” Berube said.

In the last election, she voted for Trump. But after listening to Haley’s advertisements and meeting her, Berube decided to throw her support behind a new candidate.

“We don’t need that mess again,” she said.

That sentiment is what is also motivating Carol Walker. She has never voted in a New Hampshire primary but she intends to on Tuesday, casting a ballot for Haley.

“She’s not Trump,” she said.

Walker, who worked in government her entire career, was unnerved by what was happening at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as she watched the events unfold on her TV.

“I couldn’t believe the president was doing that,” she said. “You want to respect the position even if you can’t respect the person, but to me he was horrible.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, Haley has capitalized on the nature of the New Hampshire primary, meeting voters and shaking hands in restaurants, general stores and at town halls across the state. Trump’s campaign has hosted larger rallies in Concord on Friday, Manchester on Saturday and Rochester on Sunday, with people waiting outside for hours to see the former president.

It was easy for Cindy Spain, 75, to see Haley for the first time before she headed to the polls to vote. All she had to do was walk across the parking lot from her apartment in Peabody Place to the VFW Post.

“I like her because she’s sharp, she gives me answers, sharp answers immediately,” she said.

Despite polls showing a Trump lead, Haley is looking onwards to her home state of South Carolina next, with a campaign event in North Charleston scheduled for Thursday, regardless of the primary outcome.

“I have said I love the Live Free or Die state. But you know what, I want to make it a live free or die country. And we’re not going to stop until we win,” she said.

Reed is already thinking about his dream ticket if Haley wins the party nominee. As a native New Hampshire resident, the perfect running mate is already alongside her.

“I’d like to see Nikki Haley and Chris Sununu as a ticket,” he  said. “I really think that will be the ideal ticket for the United State s right now. They look good together, they  work good together.”