A massive crowd of New Englanders rallied in New Hampshire’s Seacoast region, as pump-up music by artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo blasted through the speakers and they sampled the event’s signature drink: the Kamalamenon.

The lemonade’s kitschy name was fitting as thousands welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris to the Granite State on Wednesday.

In her first visit to New Hampshire as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris talked about her plan to support small businesses, noting that she wants to expand tax incentives for startup expenses from $5,000 to $50,000 with the goal, over four years, of seeing 25 million new small business applications.

“You’re not only leaders in business. You’re civic leaders,” Harris said. She added, “You are part of the glue and the fabric that holds communities together.”

Prior to speaking of small businesses, Harris brought up a school shooting in Georgia on Wednesday.

“We’ve got to stop it,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

As for what drew all these people to see Harris, one audience member said there’s “so much it seems obvious.”

“We’re just thankful that there’s a joyful way for the country to proceed,” said Steve Schwartz, a retired business owner who lives in Manchester.

He and his wife are voting on the principle of honesty — a value they believe there’s a “big shortage” of among Republicans.

Catherine Johnson, a front-desk greeter at Dartmouth College, traveled from Hanover to see Harris in action. Johnson is a self-described political junkie and said she went to more than 80 events during the presidential primary season on all ends of the political spectrum — she volunteered for Chris Christie’s presidential campaign and went to at least eight Trump rallies because she wanted to understand supporters and candidates from both sides.

Johnson is undeniably a Harris supporter, she said, but she does wish the vice president would elevate more Democratic candidates down the ballot — if Harris is elected but stuck with a Republican Congress, Johnson said, her impact will be limited.

She believes the election will come down to reproductive freedom, a point that the vice president and Democrats throughout the Granite State have been hammering for months.

“Donald Trump is literally the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and he’s only getting worse,” Johnson said.

David Seaton traveled to North Hampton from Massachusetts to support Harris.

“I’m excited to see the energy here,” Seaton said. He served as a Massachusetts delegate at the Democratic National Convention, where he said people could feel that excitement “in the air.”

Seaton attends Tufts University but previously volunteered with Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire and has worked with several of the congressional Democrats in the state.

His main priorities are supporting public education and combating gun violence, as well as personal freedoms.

“I know that our rights, at this moment, are on the line,” Seaton said.

Harris has touted building up and strengthening the middle class as part of building her campaign, noting that large corporations should “pay their fair share” in higher taxes.

Harris’s campaign has said it has 17 field offices in New Hampshire.

President Joe Biden carried New Hampshire by 7 percentage points in 2020. Trump was closer to winning New Hampshire in the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, or send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.

Material from an Associated Press report was used in this article.