By JOSEPHINE JOHNSON
Capital News Service
UNIVERSITY PARK, Md. – Carrie Murphy of University Park came to the polls Tuesday morning to vote for the best grown-up running for president.
Murphy, 55, a business manager, cast her vote for president for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“It’s absolutely inconceivable that we could face a presidential term led by somebody so patently unqualified for office,” Murphy said of another presidential candidate. “We need grown-ups to run the country.”
The House and Senate elections are also important to Murphy, she said. If Harris is elected to office without the support of Congress, it would make it difficult for her to follow through with the policies she campaigned on, Murphy said. In Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey is pitted against Republican challenger George McDermott.
On the ballot, Maryland voters are also deciding whether or not to add language to the Maryland Constitution, confirming an individual’s right to reproductive freedom.
“It’s a shame that we have to have things like that added to the ballot,” she said. “But I think the events of the last several years have shown us why we have to do that, unfortunately.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 legal decision affirming that the Constitution protected a woman’s right to have an abortion.
As for after the election, Murphy shared her hope that political disagreements will heal.
“I’m hopeful,” Murphy said. “And very much hope that this election will show that the preponderance of people in the U.S. are who I feel my neighbors are … people of goodwill. We may disagree about different things, but at the end of the day we recognize competence and commitment.
