A Tampico couple that have been married 53 years are tired of seeing the nation in debt.

On Tuesday, Merrill and Carol Sue King said they cast their votes for the man they think can get the nation going in the right direction.

At the Grassy Fork Township polling site at the fire station in Tampico, the Kings both said they voted for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Carol Sue King said she doesn’t like seeing the nation trillions of dollars in debt and businesses filing for bankruptcy. She also hasn’t liked hearing the candidates bicker back and forth.

“Donald Trump is smart, and I think he’ll listen to the people,” she said. “We need somebody that knows a lot of this stuff, and Donald Trump, he has been successful in a lot of things. I don’t think he was attacked until (other candidates) attacked him. He fights back, and we want somebody fighting for us, for sure.”

Merrill King said he feels the nation’s debt goes back to the George Bush administration.

“I’m tired of the way it has been going (in recent years). I was tired of the Bush administration, too. I don’t want anymore Bushes,” he said. “I can’t say this country is better off now than it was before because we’re in debt deeper. After four years of being in office and a family is in debt deeper than they were when (a president) took over, they didn’t do any good.”

He said he thinks Trump can help turn things around.

“He’s a businessman,” Merrill King said. “I feel like we need a change, and we need to get out of debt in the country. I don’t like it because the Republican Party doesn’t want Trump. I think the people ought to choose.”

Along with voting for president Tuesday, Hoosiers heading to the polls also had state- and county-level candidates from which to choose.

The Kings said they weren’t familiar with many of the state or local candidates. A couple of people running for office contacted them in some way, so that’s who they checked on their ballot.

“The women fought so hard for women to get out and vote. I thought, ‘Well, they did it. I’ll do it, too,” Carol Sue King said of why she makes sure to vote. “If I don’t vote, I can’t complain.”

A few miles away, at the Washington Township poll site in the Dudleytown Conservation Club, 25-year-old Jordan Eggersman cast his votes on the electronic voting machine.

Ever since he turned 18, he said he has tried to make it a priority to vote each election.

“My grandpa was in the war, and my wife’s grandpa, he was in the war, and they all fought for our freedoms,” Eggersman said. “So this is just maintaining all of those freedoms that they went to war for. I think just whenever you are supposed to go vote, you go vote.”

Eggersman said the variety of national, state and county races on the primary election ballot made it even more important for him to vote.

“Just to kind of keep our nation and everything going strong and trying to make the world a better place,” he said.

On his way in to vote, Eggersman noticed a couple of high school-age kids campaigning for local candidates. Seeing the youth involved is encouraging to see, he said.

“It’s cool seeing these kids out here,” he said. “It just kind of gets them in the mood for whenever they are old enough to vote.”