Let’s take a picture of America in the latter months of an election year. We want to sense what’s on this country’s mind. So Morning Edition begins a series of reports from First and Main. Several times in the next few months, we’ll travel to a battleground state, then to a vital county in each state. In that county we find a starting point for our visit — an iconic American corner — First and Main streets.
The intersection of First and Main in Lutz, Fla., is located on a privately owned road in a trailer park community.
We begin in the swing state of Florida, in hotly contested Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa. The county voted for Republican George W. Bush in 2004, then for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.
Here, First and Main are two gravel roads that meet in a trailer park in a suburban area called Lutz. The trailers have grown over the years, residents say, into full-sized homes — some have permanent rooms or carports attached.
Just down the street from First and Main, we encounter kids standing on a waist-high pile of gravel, along with their mother, Katrina Bordwell — and a story about change in Florida.
MORE: Even In Florida Swing County, Minds Seem Made Up : NPR.