Stephen Redic

Introduction

Stephen Redic, a 70-year-old poet from Laconia, New Hampshire, was arrested on November 4, 2026 and charged with misdemeanor simple assault and violation-level disorderly conduct after a viral video showed him allegedly striking an 18-year-old Turning Point Action volunteer across the face outside a Ward 5 polling place on Election Day. Police said Redic walked up to the Turning Point tent at Woodland Heights Elementary School on November 3 as voters were casting ballots, announced he wanted to read a poem “about rich people,” argued himself hoarse with the volunteer, gave him the middle finger, and hit him across the right side of his face with the back of his right hand before walking off swearing. Redic turned himself in at the Laconia police station the next morning and was released on a promise to appear for a December 10 arraignment; he told WMUR the video shows only part of the story, called his own actions inexcusable, and apologized.

Background Information

Redic published a book of poems, “Tying My Shoes,” in 2023, in which he boasted of meeting every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Laconia Police Department said it had never dealt with him before the incident — “We’re not familiar with him, meaning we’ve had no prior contacts,” Chief Matthew Canfield told Fox News Digital. The volunteer he is accused of hitting, Rainer Vesey, is the president of the Old Lyme, Connecticut Turning Point Activism Hub and was staffing the booth that afternoon alongside his brother Asher Vesey, the group’s vice president, representing Turning Point PAC at the Laconia polls.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged, not convicted. Redic faces one count of simple assault, a Class A misdemeanor, and one count of disorderly conduct, a violation; the charges are allegations, he has not been tried, and he is scheduled to be arraigned December 10 in Laconia District Court.

According to the police account, Redic approached the Turning Point tent around 2:40 p.m. on November 3 as he was leaving the poll and said he wanted to read a poem about rich people. Vesey told officers the two debated, but Redic grew increasingly agitated — becoming “very aggressive,” raising his voice, and yelling — and, in the exchange caught on video, jabbed a finger at the volunteer and demanded, “You sit there and dare to look me in the face and say I don’t know anything?” Saying “That’s what I know,” he struck Vesey across the right side of the face with the back of his right hand — an audible smack on the recording — then added “f–k that s–t” as he walked away while bystanders discussed calling the police. The poem itself never appears in the video.

Asher Vesey’s recording spread rapidly online after Rainer Vesey posted it, and it was shared by state Rep. Mike Bordes, a Laconia Republican. Police said they obtained video evidence and interviewed three witnesses; the suspect was gone when officers arrived, but someone had noted his license plate, which let police identify him. An arrest warrant was drafted Tuesday night, officers went to Redic’s home Wednesday morning, found him absent, and he turned himself in at the station “a very short time later,” per Chief Canfield — booked around 8 a.m. on November 4 and released the same day on a written promise to appear in court.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The clip ricocheted across political social media one year and three weeks after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated under a similar tent at Utah Valley University, with commentators on both sides weighing in on the Election Day imagery of an elderly liberal poet backhanding a teenage conservative activist. Turning Point Action’s public relations manager, Brooke Bessinger, did not respond to the Laconia Daily Sun’s request for comment by late Wednesday, and the Vesey brothers declined to comment on the election. Chief Canfield, while confirming the assault charge, told WMUR there were “two different sides to this” — “I think that this gentleman was very heated and very opinionated in his viewpoint, which led to him becoming agitated, and it just built and built and built until he eventually assaulted him.”

Redic himself did not deny the contact: speaking to News 9, he said the video “only tells part of the story,” but added that his actions were inexcusable and that he apologizes. It was not immediately clear whether he had retained a lawyer as of Wednesday afternoon, and he did not respond to Fox News Digital’s attempt to reach him.

Current Status

Redic is charged with misdemeanor simple assault and violation-level disorderly conduct, free on a promise to appear, with an arraignment set for 8:30 a.m. on December 10 in Laconia District Court. He has acknowledged his actions and apologized while disputing that the video shows the whole encounter; the charges remain unadjudicated, no trial date exists, and neither police nor prosecutors have indicated additional charges are under consideration.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The arrest converted a self-published poet’s minor literary footnote — meeting presidents, writing about wealth — into the defining fact of his public identity: a booking photo released through police channels, a viral clip replayed nationwide, and a misdemeanor record pending. The Laconia police emphasized they had no prior contact with him in seventy years, and his own apology suggests an abrupt end to whatever quiet local standing the “Tying My Shoes” author had. For Turning Point, the incident became another marker in a hard stretch for its volunteer corps — the group’s booth staffing at polling places now carrying a viral assault fourteen months after its founder’s assassination — while for Election Day polling-place conduct generally, the case stands as a reminder that poll-side arguments can end in criminal complaints with video evidence waiting.

Sources

• NY Post, “New Hampshire poet Stephen Redic arrested for slapping Turning Point teen outside polling place,” November 5, 2026. source
• Fox News, “Video shows polling place attack on Turning Point member; poet arrested,” November 2026. source
• WMUR, “70-year-old man accused of assaulting Turning Point member at NH polling site,” November 4, 2026. source
• The Laconia Daily Sun, “City resident charged after video emerges of assault at Ward 5 poll,” November 4, 2026. source
• NBC Boston, “Turning Point USA member assaulted at Laconia NH polling place,” November 4, 2026. source