Excitement High as Unusual Primary Nears

Residents of the South Fork will add their voices to a clamorous debate on Tuesday when they vote in the first New York State presidential primary in recent memory that is expected to play a substantial role in determining the major parties’ nominees in November.

While polls showed Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump maintaining comfortable leads as of yesterday, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is hoping for an upset in the Democratic primary, while on the Republican side Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, though trailing in New York, has outmaneuvered Mr. Trump in several states’ delegate selection processes and benefited from a backlash against the front-runner, as has Gov. John Kasich.

• Where and When to Vote in Tuesday's Presidential Primary

Republican Party leaders will choose 95 delegates representing congressional districts, who will be assigned a candidate to vote for based on the tallies. The Democratic system includes 163 pledged delegates, who are bound to support a particular candidate, at least on the first ballot at the convention.  Their names and will appear beneath the candidate’s on Tuesday; 84 at-large delegates, who will be chosen proportionally at the state party convention next month based on the primary results, and 44 superdelegates who are not bound to a candidate.

On the South Fork, many party officials and residents are active in the campaigns, though some hesitate to reveal their preferences. A survey this week demonstrated that voters here are united in the belief that the 2016 presidential election is critically important.

“It’s very exciting that the New York primaries will play a key role in the nominating process for both parties,” Amos Goodman, a member of the East Hampton Republican Committee, wrote in an email. Calling the presidential election “one for the books,” he said, “The populist, anti-establishment appeal of Sanders on the left, and Trump (and Cruz to some degree) on the right are natural consequences of an out-of-touch political elite, and a government that plays favorites and manages to be both profligate and ineffective.”

Judith Hope, a former East Hampton Town supervisor who also had been chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, is a candidate to be one of Mrs. Clinton’s pledged delegates. “We’re finding people are well aware that she’s by far the most qualified and experienced candidate in the race on either ticket,” Ms. Hope said. “Her years in the State Department and U.S. Senate, as well as first lady, have put her in a unique position. She’s on a first-name basis with most of the leaders around the world, and has visited over 200 countries. There are few people with that kind of experience anywhere.” Mr. Sanders has a supporter in Betty Mazur, vice chairwoman of the East Hampton Democrats, though she said she would support the eventual nominee. “He has brought to the forefront issues that have been neglected and pushed under the rug for many moons,” she said of Mr. Sanders. “I think he’s done a great service by doing that. The inequality in our country now is distressing. He’s shined a spotlight on those inequalities and brought them to the forefront in a way that no one else has.”

On the Republican side, Mr. Trump has also struck a chord with voters, Reginald Cornelia of the East Hampton Re-  publican Committee said. “I wish he could do it more like Ronald Reagan, more eloquently and without some of the vulgarities, but he certainly has raised the issues people want to talk about.” Mr. Cornelia also called Mr. Cruz “an excellent candidate.”

Mr. Cornelia and Mr. Goodman were in their own race this week, seeking to become chairman of the East Hampton Republicans following the resignation of Tom Knobel last month. The committee was to make a decision last night.

Walker Bragman, a co-founder of the New Leaders of East Hampton, a group that advocates political participation, said that while the group has chosen to be nonpartisan, he supports Mr. Sanders and would not vote for Mrs. Clinton if she was the nominee. “I would rather lose four years to run someone like Elizabeth Warren,” the senator from Massachusetts, in 2020, he said, if Mr. Sanders does not win the Democratic nomination.

Like Mr. Goodman, Greg Mansley, the East Hampton Republican media director, pointed to voters’ disgust with business-as-usual politics at a time when the country faces threats including terrorism and the Zika virus. “My beliefs are not aligned with Sanders, but I like the way he talks,” he said. Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump, he said, are popular because “both parties are trying to push into office the person who will continue the money trail to them. That’s got to change.”

Andrew Sabin of Amagansett, a major supporter of Republican candidates, said yesterday that his preferred candidate had been Jeb Bush. While he is not enamored of those remaining in the race, he said he preferred Mr. Kasich. Mr. Cruz is “a brilliant guy,” he said, but “I just feel he’s a bit too far to the right.”

Mr. Sabin said his focus is on how the Republican nominee for president might affect congressional races, with several Republicans, particularly in the Senate, facing tough re-election battles. Mr. Trump’s nomination, he said, would damage the prospects of legislators in tight contests.

Musicians and other artists have also had a long history of political activism, and that tradition is continuing on the South Fork. Mick Hargreaves, a musician, recently hosted a phone bank for Mr. Sanders at the recording studio he operates in Manorville. “I was struck by the incredible businesslike demeanor of everyone — strangers walked in with laptops, plugged them in, and got right to work, no small talk. I was blown away,” he said. “I can wait until the Democratic primary is over to decide who I’m going to vote for in the general,” he said. “But you can guess I’m not going to vote for Trump.”

Michael Weiskopf, a guitarist who lives in East Hampton, said he felt the same urgency many others express about the election. For that reason, he said, Democrats should unite behind Mrs. Clinton. “Let’s not screw this up,” he wrote in an email. “Hillary is going to be the candidate. Many of us would like someone that we think would be better, but it ain’t going to happen.”

Intraparty divisions that prompted Democrats to sit out elections or register a “protest” vote resulted in the election of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, “one of the most disastrous administrations in history,” he said. “It is time to unite and avoid wasting the opportunity to take the Senate and possibly the House. We can’t always get what we want. Clearly this is what we need.”

The general election “favors the Democrats,” Mr. Bragman, who is also a journalist and political cartoonist, predicted. “I think the only way that we could possibly lose is if it’s Clinton versus Trump. . . . She’s still very much a transactional politician, where he’s coming in as this outside figure — saying some scary things, but at same time appealing to blue-collar labor in a way that she’s not.”

Ms. Hope disagreed. “They call her the establishment candidate, but she’s devoted her life to working for women and children, which is not establishment politics,” she said. “For a lot of us, this is a seminal, very critical moment. It’s time for America to take a chance on a woman and let her show us what she can do.”