On the dot of 8 pm, CNN declared Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump the winners of the New Hampshire primary. The results apparently are that clear. It appears that a big battle for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place may be shaping up on the GOP side; we won’t know more on that until more results come in. Meanwhile:
- Sanders and Trump, as unlikely as it may have seemed a few months ago, are for real. They proved in Iowa that they can contend; they proved tonight that they can win, and apparently win big. And if, as appears will be the case, Trump pretty much lives up to his poll numbers, it also helps answer a question that has hung over the GOP race for months: do Trump’s sometimes astronomical poll numbers reflect real voters? At least in NH, they did.
- The GOP establishment, such as it is, is in meltdown. The two men the establishment hates most – Ted Cruz and Donald Trump – went 1-2 in Iowa, and Trump appears to have won NH running away. Marco Rubio, the supposed establishment choice after Jeb! flamed out, only managed third in Iowa and may well do worse in NH. What’s their next move? As of now, John Kasich is holding second place, but he seems an unlikely rallying point.
- Unless Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina do a lot better than they’re doing right now, they seem to me unlikely to be able to continue. Christie then might choose to back Kasich (if he holds 2nd), or Jeb!, or he might wait. Christie didn’t garner much electoral support, but he is an effective surrogate, and he did a lot of damage to Rubio in the last debate. He wouldn’t be a bad guy to have in your corner going forward. Fiorina … not sure anyone really cares.
Your thoughts?
Please share widely!
Running 5th at the moment and hovering at 10%. Looks like 3-2-1 is off the table. Can’t wait for him to make an “I am not a robot” ad.
And Kasich in 2nd, and he isn’t going anywhere after today. So Rubio and Bush slug away without ever getting the other guy out, and the thing goes to Trump or Cruz. Yikes.
Kasich has absolutely no wheels, though. If you were the establishment picking a horse, would you pick Kasich? The thinking-man’s candidate?
His silver medal is as unsurprising as Bernie’s gold here.
Kasich is gonna get creamed down South. Then what?
Bernie….a little bit of is starting to wonder if Bernie might have some legs.
I think it highly unlikely that the GOP will pick Kasich as the party nominee but he scares me the most, especially as a VP as I mentioned a few months ago.
Kasich is a very decent man and everybody who meets him kinda agrees, including the press. He is also a fairly independent thinker. I remember the effort to stop Star Wars type missile defense during the Reagan admin, and Kasich, as Chair of the House Budget Committee said we would be better served by investing in our troops and not more weapons. We all wanted to hug him.
Kasich went to his gay friend’s wedding and despite his opposition to same sex marriage (remember that Obama, Clinton and pretty much everyone in Congress held the same opinion at the time) he answered questions better most anybody else in politics did.
Kasich’s independence, and his advocacy as a minimalist in government spending to the contrary, makes him an admirable man and a scary opponent as VP on the GOP side
…but as an American I can at least picture him as a President, which is more than I can say for a lot of that side.
that Kasich could be the biggest threat simply because he’s so nice. While I find a lot of his policy positions totally out of whack, he projects an ethos of open minded humility that none of the other republicans can match. He’s a good example of the “old school” repubs that used to be so numerous here in New England.
Luckily, for us lefties, civility and independent thinking aren’t really the flavor of the moment in today’s G.O.P. It’s sad, really.
He can look to find traction in the Washington and Nevada caucuses. On Super Tuesday, he should do well in the blue and purple states – MA, MN, VT, VA, CO and ND. Then it’s his sweet spot – MI, OH, IL and MO on 3/8 and 3/15. The rest of the field needs him gone before those primaries.
One point Kasich will keep hammering is that he showed greatest appeal with independents – and, since Rubio got shaken badly in the debate with his robo-responses, the ‘default establishment candidate’ R vote switched from Rubio to Kasich, and not to Bush.
If Rubio continues to stumble, look for Kasich as the emerging establishment candidate.
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would go to Trump, along with every other candidate who finished under 10%.)
Bernie looks to win by a bit more than expected. As always, the question is whether he can expand his appeal beyond the decidedly non-diverse electorates of Iowa and NH. Will he get a momentum bump into NV/SC? While I remain skeptical, I can’t discount the possibility.
The Republican side is a total mess. Rubio finally looked like he was getting the establishment behind him after Iowa, but I can’t see that continuing now. Kaisch’s performance is impressive, but he has literally almost no organization past NH. Does this actually mean that we’re witnessing a Jeb! comeback? And when the hell is the Republican establishment finally going to take a stand against Trump/Cruz?
At least not until they figure out who the establishment guy is. Bush is going to get pasted in South Carolina.
I still think that something external has to give Sanders a bump, if he is really to make a run at it. But he is certainly positioned to answer the door if opportunity knocks.
His family is actually liked there and he has Lindsay Graham.
I don’t recall what it is, but it may be the Walker name. It came up during W’s runs.
Cruz took a pass on New Hampshire, and looks like he will beat both Bush and Rubio.
Yes, this is quite telling. Everyone assumed that Cruz would have little chance since it was tough territory for him and because others had campaigned much harder in NH. But beating Bush and Rubio despite a lack of effort is pretty impressive. We’ll see what happens next, but there aren’t many states worse for Cruz than NH , and he did well here.
His campaign is based on ideas he’s had for over 30 years.
These ideas resonate now because things have gotten so out of balance. If he is the nominee, I’m pretty sure he would beat Trump, or any other Republican.
Sanders blew past pre election poll expectations… He even won the women vote – when women had been warned by Madeleine Albright that there’s a special place in hell for them…
It’s becoming apparent that this is generational, and Hillary had trouble connecting with young people. These young people found attacks coming from elderly statesmen patronizing, and got even more entrenched.
What Hillary needs pronto are some very young operatives brought front and center, to reenergize things and to connect better. And what she needs are solutions that speak to young people needs: college debt is foremost on their mind.
Clearly, attacks from Bill Clinton and a host of other high level surrogates over the past two days did not help one whit, but what I am hearing is that there’s more of that in the pipeline.
While Trump wins with 34%, that’s 66% of New Hampshire against. Of that 64%, more of it goes to moderates like Kaisch as the field narrows. Kaisch is a likable guy, a moderate. If it comes down to a likable Republican moderate and a moderate Democrat with not a lot of like-ability…..it’s deja vu
Right on.
I don’t care how obvious it is; races should not be called while people are still in line to vote.
Do you think the people standing in line at a polling place are simultaneously sitting at home watching CNN?
…and most people have them! I’m sure while they were waiting in line, they were browsing the web, or like me, got a bunch of news alerts pop up on their phone at 8:01pm!
I also admit to being a bit snarky. However, the usual argument about calling elections while the polls are open is that a projection discourages people from going to their friendly local polling place. This usually happens in the context of a national election, where east coast results send a very clear message while west coast polls are still open for hours. This also happens in states with two time zones, such as Florida, where the polls in the western part of the state close an hour later.
Announcing the projection at the poll closing isn’t going to encourage voters to stay on their couches and blow off the vote. I also doubt voters on line would turn around and go home if they got a projection on their cell phone at closing time.
Announcing at the designated closing time seems reasonable to me. I mean, what do you want CNN to do, sit there knowing Bernie is going to win by 20 points, and not report news in a competitive news market, because three people are still waiting to vote in Goffstown? It’s not as if they have a monopoly on the news, as there are plenty of informed folks with Twitter accounts putting numbers into social media as soon as they are available.
Boo, pablo, and his outdated notions of what people do on line.
I hope there is a portal within 40m of the damn line.
Where we fold our pizza, call the smallest denomination of paper money a “single” and not a “one,” and “in line” is a kind of roller skate, and not a place where one queues.
In two weeks New Hampshire will be as big a factor as Iowa is today. How the delegates are chosen in each state overrides the things we have been talking about up to now.
Which is why I can’t get worked up about how inexactly democratic it might be any more than I do about the 15% rule at our state conventions.
The media loves a maverick Republican and he will get the kind of positive coverage McCain enjoyed. I gotta agree with folks up thread, particularly TBD, that he actually comes across as a real human being and not a politician which would be is “in” this year despite holding more establishment positions. He would be really scary against Clinton, but I suspect he will likely hit a roadblock at some point. He better hope for s surprise third in SC and the collapse of Jeb!, Rubio and Christie which is not impossible to see at this point. And if Cruz and Trump nuke each other he stands to win.
I agree with just about everything you say here, but the big problem Kasich faces is that he put all his chips in on NH but has little plan from here on out. Will he really get a big enough bounce to compete in SC and NV? After all, those states are much different than NH.
Ultimately, given the craziness that has occurred so far, I wouldn’t be surprised that it will be Bush, rather than Kasich, that gets the “establishment” GOP look heading out from NH. Jeb was the one with the establishment backing from the get-go, and now that everything is a muddle, he might just get it again.
He’s objectively when one of the weakest candidates I’ve seen. This run really makes John Kerry 2004 look like Barack Obama 2008. He’s really quite awful at this. If I were a wealthy Republican donor worried about Trump I’d take a long second hand look at Kasich. Rubio wilted under Christie’s criticism in the worst way, and got smashed in NH.
Christie did his kneecapping but didn’t gain any votes for it, and Jeb! makes Dukakis look like Bill Clinton. He ended up playing last moderate standing better than the field. He is probably out of money though, so that’s where the tea leaves are. Jeb! Donors should request their money back to defund his vanity act spiraling into self satire and sadness.
When you include super delegates I believe Sec Clinton will gain as many delegates as Sen Sanders.
WOW.
With better polling, we’ve gotten used to (sort of) knowing in advance, and that almost downplays the results. Both these results are earthquake-level political shocks.
If you look at the Republican results, you have to add the next THREE challengers: GOVERNOR John Kasich, SENATOR (and Iowa winner) Ted Cruz, and BUSH Jeb Bush to get past Trump’s vote totals. In short he swamped the field.
For the moment, I don’t want to get too into the Democratic results. But again, even though it was predicted, in the immortal words of Vin Scully, I can’t believe what I just saw.
all the candidates with less than 10% lose rights to any share of delegates, with their proportion going to the winner.
So a vote for Chris Christie was a vote for Donald Trump.
Not only did Bernie (138,716) get 66% more NH primary votes than Trump (92,417), Hillary (88,827) nearly matched Trump.
All we heard from pundits after Iowa was how this ain’t your dad’s GOP because two Hispanics were in the top three. What will they say after two white guys in 60s took New Hampshire?
A few notes on The Big Grift: Carson’s campaign has raised $54 million, most in GOP, yet he got 2.3% last night. Bush’s Super PAC & campaign have raised $150 million & it’s won him 3 of 53 delegates so far. Super PACs for Christie & Walker combined to raise $45 million & win 0 delegates.
And not just in the winter.
Perhaps other states with more diverse populations will track differently.
Perhaps.
So NH was a failure for the Clinton campaign. So we’ll see how this plays out, how does Nevada and SC respond.
I watched NECN this morning and it had a clip of Sanders shooting hoops, too funny. Devine has the cameras out showing an active and in healthly Sanders. They think it’s going to be a long race.
And actually go out and earn votes by being honest about who they are and what they hope to do. Not only did she get clobbered by 65%-35% with white working class voters, the same base that was her firewall against Obama in 2008, but she got clobbered decisively with under 30’s nearly 80-20 and lost women to Bernie 54-46.
Those are dreadful numbers, and while I agree that Bernie has weaknesses with people of color and Latino voters-I don’t know if the Clinton’s can rely on those blocks alone to win the nomination. This will be a longer and harder fought race than they anticipated or their supporters conceded, and it will be quite difficult to beat Bernie by going negative. I still think she probably wins, but she has to become a better candidate to do so.
It’s a little funny that she is not doing well among the white working class, where that was where she did well in 2008, but is now doing well among wealthy white Democrats and minorities, which is essentially the Obama coalition. Until Sanders makes a big move in those groups, I remain a skeptic.
Sanders is doing a good job with the gauzy Simon & Garfunkel ads, and the new “together” one (which is pretty darn good indeed), but the cynic in me recognizes that this is a reprise of 2008 wish-fulfillment fancy, and has all the staying power of a small puddle on a hot day in Death Valley.
Women and working class voters voter supposedly were in Hillary’s pantsuit pocket and she just lost them in NH. Now she’s got an even bigger problem because she’s got to explain how Bernie took away her supposed committed voters. The same thing is going to happen with blacks and Hispanics if they continue to count on that firewall.
Like you said, she needs to hone her message or no amount of demographic gamesmanship will save her.
I’m not necessarily talking to you personally on this one, but if she needs to get tough how does she do that without offending someone? If she hits too hard all of a sudden it’s she’ll say anything and stoop as low as necessary to win. Some Sanders supporters are quick to whine and play victim when she lands even the slightest punch, even to call her well-respected President-husband nasty for the slightest critique of Sanders’ proposals. Let’s just say I’m not sure I’ve actually heard or read the gender-loaded term “unbecoming” yet, but that’s definitely the vibe I get from some.
…rather than simply downrating it? I really do want to know how Clinton is allowed to offer pointed critiques of Sanders without his supporters taking personal umbrage that she is (gasp!) campaigning.
While it’s true that Hillary has a lead with minorities in other states… as voters learn more about Bernie, a whole lot of them tend to support him.
I don’t know if Bernie will have the time to really get to know SC and Nevada voters in the way he got to know Iowa and NH voters, so I’m not sure if he’ll be able to win a majority of them or not, but I do feel very, very confident that both states will narrow significantly from where they were last polled, and a lot of that will have to do with Bernie continuing to become more familiar to minority communities.
His plans to reform the police state and economic justice policies have connected with a lot of prominent minority thinkers and leaders, as well as key BLM activists, and he’s taking nothing for granted. He’s going to make inroads with these communities, especially younger voters in them, as the race goes on.
I think he’s going to win this election, and I think he’s going to win a majority of minority voters as he does it.
Bernie’s had a full time organizing staff presence in SC and NV for a while now -longer than team Clinton I think- plus he’s racking up activist/social hub endorsements. So I think there’s a lot of fluidity out there. Clinton’s minority support seems to be more of a default thing (remember 2008). > 2/10 TPC pollis instructive –
It didn’t work in 2008 because a credible African-American was running, but it probably still is the default position. If I had to predict now I’d say Sanders gets NV and Clinton gets SC.
n/t
The key here is that Sanders, like Obama, doesn’t limit his outreach to the old, reductive “super voter” paradigm that relies on trying to win over an ever-aging, ever diminishing pool of voters who have proven reliable to show up over successive election cycles. He’s courted those folks, of course. But he’s devoted a huge amount of energy to enlisting and pinning down NEW voters, and hunting down activists in the communities where they live and work. Poverty and homelessness, for example, are not abstract constructs to him: he actually talks to poor people and homeless people ands asks them to vote. Imagine that! This approach carries over to the “black vote” a term most black voters I know seem to find pretty obnoxious and condescending in its presumption that they belong to racially defined army that marches in lockstep.
that the key here is Sanders’ recognition of commonality before any identity of greivance. Translates to: “We’re all stuck in this boat together. Now, let’s deal with your gripe together”
I keep saying “the key, here” snooty verbal tick
We all have our default phrasing.
..as they felt for the person Toni Morrison once called “the first black President”.