[Daybreak on the Atlantic is a slow, hypnotic explosion of color. Black skies turn ash gray; next, a sideways sliver of orange divides the vast horizon. A pause, then a breathtaking ocean dawn: Churning deep blue waters collide with the palest of blue skies. Wisps of clouds turn whiter and brighter as the sun climbs.
First light changes everything.
A pod of dolphins emerges to play alongside the “Jillian and Peri” as it motors out to deeper waters. Their squeals as they pass below the hull echo onboard and stir Andrew Konchek from his wooden bunk below deck. Time for another subfreezing day at the office, fishing 15 miles or so off the Massachusetts coast.
“It’s a little cold,” Konchek said. “It’s definitely hard work. Not for everybody.” But it defines him.
Konchek went to culinary school. Worked as a chef. But the ocean called him back. “Because I love it,” he said. “I can’t see myself doing anything else but fishing.”
That love powers his politics and his belief that Donald Trump back in the White House is his best hope for job security. “Oh yeah, all day,” is the answer when Konchek is asked whether the new Trump term makes it more likely he will still be working the water two and four years from now. He adds this bitter pill for Democrats: “Republicans are for the people.”
We met Konchek 16 months ago, in the early stages of our All Over the Map project — an effort to track the 2024 campaign through the eyes and experiences of voters who live in key places or are part of critical voting blocs.
Though fishing off Massachusetts this visit, he is a New Hampshire resident who backed Trump in the state’s early primary and then again in November, as he did in 2016 and 2020. Konchek is just one example of Trump’s blue-collar appeal, his ability to connect with working-class voters who were long considered loyal Democrats.
Immigration is a central piece of this puzzle. Konchek is with the vast majority of Trump voters who want more aggressive and effective border policies, even mass deportations. “If they came over to the country legally then it wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
But Konchek’s support — and hope — for Trump is more personal: The president-elect mentions the fishermen when he comes to New England, and he promises to reverse plans for offshore wind farms that Konchek believes would destroy New England fisheries and his way of life.
“We have the border,” Lopez the Florist said when asked the issues that mattered most to his 2024 vote. “They’re spending money in Washington like it is going out of style. … The country needs to go in another direction.”
The Eire Pub is a block away, a Dorchester icon and blue-collar magnet. John Stenson’s dad bought the place 60 years ago. “First of all, Irish, many of them,” is how Stenson describes the regulars. “Secondly, blue-collar workers. Union officials. Union workers. Your everyday people who make up a neighborhood.”
Stenson was behind the bar in 1983 when Ronald Reagan stopped in to tip a pint. And again nine years later when Bill Clinton popped in as part of his effort to sell himself as a different kind of Democrat — meaning less liberal.
What was it? “Immigration and cost of living at the top,” he said.
Stenson’s gut of how the Eire regulars voted: “In favor of Trump. Probably 60-40.”
It is cops and firefighters, plumbers and electricians who surround the Eire bar for conversations mixing politics with the ups and downs of the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins.
Konchek has the same test — plus the wind farms. But he is skeptical any president can quickly tame inflation. He is also a registered Republican and perhaps more patient with Trump than are Democrats who voted GOP because they saw Harris as too liberal or out of touch with their blue-collar lives.
Not that he always agrees with Trump. Hardly. His points of disagreement with Trump include a caustic tone that can offend Konchek, and his wife even more. “He doesn’t think before he talks sometimes,” Konchek said in a conversation on the stern fishing deck.
He also wishes Trump would leave abortion and other reproductive rights decisions to women. And Konchek wishes Trump would stop denying the climate crisis he sees every day when searching for lobsters, scallops, cod and more.
The last part is an important distinction: Konchek lives the changing climate every day. There are more quotas and restrictions, more severe weather; some familiar fish are harder to find as waters warm, and some species are popping up much farther north than in years past.
Our day at sea is a promise we made to Konchek when we first met — to see the work and the waters he says the politicians don’t understand. Trips can last up to 12 days, with a crew of three plus a government observer sharing a spartan, cramped living cabin.
What the rules or common sense say you shouldn’t keep — fish too small, lobsters rich with eggs, two mako sharks in this haul — gets tossed back to their home. What you can keep gets sorted into buckets and then either the lobster tanks or the ice-filled fish hold below deck. As the days pass, the layered stacks of cod, haddock, red snapper, flounder and more grow higher.
It was 23 degrees — that’s minus 5 Celsius — when we left Provincetown Harbor at 5 a.m. Everything on the deck is icy. You are lucky this time of year if it gets above freezing.
“It’s an honest living,” is how Konchek describes it, shrugging off the grueling conditions. “It’s in my blood. It’s me. I can’t see myself doing anything else.”
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