On a freezing cold Tuesday night, Britney McQuiston and Joseph Santomasino walked out of Henry J. McLaughlin Middle School in Manchester, New Hampshire, holding hands. She voted for Bernie Sanders and he voted for Donald Trump. [She voted for Bernie Sanders and he voted for Donald Trump.

McQuiston added, "But we're still together, and we're going to go home together."

McQuiston, 27, and Santomasino, 26, have been dating for two years. They met when the Manchester native was temporarily living in her home state of Tennessee. She joked, "I found myself living here."

At one point, the couple worked more closely together on politics; both worked for the Sanders campaign when the Vermont senator ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, but only McQuiston actually voted for Sanders. Santomasino showed up at the polls in 2016 with the intention of voting for Sanders in the Democratic primary, but was handed a ballot for the Republican primary instead. Santomasino voted for Donald Trump that day. This vote was the first of three cast over the next few years.

"I don't like Trump. I don't like him as a human being," said McCuiston with as much conviction as her boyfriend displayed in his support for the 45th president. 'It's just a personality thing. That's what it comes down to. There are some great things about his policies, and I acknowledge that, but I just don't like him as a person."

For Santomasino, Trump's personality is separate from his record. 'I think art should be separated from the artist,' he said. 'There are terrible things that our leaders have done in the past. It doesn't matter who they are, what country they are from, or what their history is.' In Santomasino's view, "their personalities do not show up in the documents they write or the policies they bring about."

Santomasino describes himself as a Republican or libertarian, but "primarily a nationalist." He is a fan of Trump's pro-life stance and his advocacy of states' rights over big government. Santomasino said, "Trump has a lot of things I agree with."

McQuiston, who calls herself a moderate liberal, is "more of a moderate." Still, she is particularly drawn to Sanders' appeal for universal health care, pointing out that the U.S. is the only wealthy superpower without such a system (open with new tab).

"To me, he goes too far," Santomasino said, explaining why Sanders has not gained support this cycle. McQuiston sees Sanders as "a little more radical this time around," but she believes the times call for a radical president. She feels "it's what it takes to make a difference."

She also feels that Sanders is "a little too radical.

If it sounds like the couple has discussed this before, that's because they have. McCuiston said that they have had what she calls "talking points chats" to review their differing political views. 'It was a good, sort of open discussion,' she said. 'We definitely saw that we had more in common than we actually had apart.'

It's a lesson they believe Americans should remember in this epic time of political division. According to Pew Research Center data, there are zero issues that are widely considered by both Democrats and Republicans to be top priorities today. Also illuminating in a series of surveys are the findings of social scientists that an increasing number of Republicans and Democrats are unhappy if their children marry someone from the opposing party. Santomasino, however, believes this is not the case locally. "The attitude of people here, in other words, is healthy debate and at each other's throats: ...... Unless it's not, we're all going to [get] together. This is America."

"I want to be able to talk to him about anything," McQuiston said. "And it's an open arms, open door policy where we talk openly about how we feel about things," she said.

As she and Santomasino have learned, McQuiston believes that other Americans who support different political candidates would find they have more in common than they thought if they would only talk to each other. Getting them to do so will be the hard part, she says. She says, "I feel like you have to let your guard down and find a willingness to connect, whether it's the person across the street or someone you've partnered with."

If Americans do that, they will realize that people are not as extreme as they flaunt themselves on social media, Santomasino suggested: "If people sit across the table from each other, (they) will realize that what we all believe is pretty close. They would realize that what we all believe is pretty close."

After all, McQuiston added, "we are all human."

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