What did we learn from New Hampshire? We asked four POLITICO reporters — Natasha Korecki, Holly Otterbein, David Siders and Trent Spiner — for their takeaways from Tuesday’s primary.
What does Sanders’ win mean for him — and for the other top Democrats?
Otterbein: This is an important victory for Sanders — and vindication for a campaign that had been completely written off by pundits for months, until very recently. It’s also a fascinating turnaround in a state where his team faced challenges months earlier: Sanders had reassigned his former New Hampshire state director to another state, then parted ways with him entirely, and his ex-political strategist in New Hampshire also left the campaign.
That said, Sanders’ team almost certainly would have preferred a larger margin over Buttigieg. But if Buttigieg can’t turn around his fortunes with voters of color, he’s a good foil for Sanders to have in second place in New Hampshire, because Buttigieg’s particular weaknesses will make it harder for the moderate bloc of the Democratic Party to unify against Sanders. It’s also great for Sanders that Warren finished fourth. That should theoretically make it easier for him to consolidate the progressive vote — with an emphasis on “theoretically.”
Siders: It was more important than just Sanders winning. It was Sanders winning while Warren continued to fade.
For more than a year, centrist Democrats had viewed Sanders as potentially weak in part because of the likelihood that he would split the progressive vote with Warren, lowering his numbers. If he gets the left flank to himself, that’s bad news for moderates, especially since they’re dividing their own share of the vote every which way right now.
Korecki: In case it was lost on anyone, Bernie is here to stay. He’s now the best-funded candidate who also happens to be winning. And Sanders has an answer to all of the talk of New Hampshire and Iowa not being representative of the Democratic electorate because they’re too white, having performed well among the African Americans and Latinos Democrats who have voted in those states. He could pose a threat to what was Joe Biden’s stranglehold on South Carolina, much more so, at least than Buttigieg or Klobuchar do at the moment.
Spiner: That wasn’t a slam dunk performance by Sanders. In 2016, he got more than 60 percent of the vote statewide and 70 to 80 percent of most of the college towns. This year, he underperformed in some of the most liberal towns where he should have done well.
In Plymouth, where he won nearly 80 percent of the Democratic vote in 2016, his support was cut in half this year. The same was true in Durham, where the University of New Hampshire is based and Keene, the home of Keene State College. He lost Hanover, a town on the border of Vermont that’s home to Dartmouth College, by 6 points to Buttigieg.
What about the primary results surprised you the most?
Siders: It was pretty clear when fire officials started barring the doors to her events over the weekend that Amy Klobuchar had momentum. But it was still surprising to learn just how much juice she had since Friday’s debate.
Even a fourth place finish would have been good enough to have people talking about Klobuchar. Beating both Biden and Warren was stunning. And she beat them by a mile.
Otterbein: The surprise of the night was definitely Klobuchar finishing ahead of Warren. Klobuchar had said previously she wanted to surge at the right time, and though it might have been spin, hey, she actually did it. Fresh off a strong debate performance, and with Biden nosediving and Buttigieg facing new scrutiny after performing strongly in Iowa, moderates and older voters took a look at her and liked what they saw.
Korecki: Biden didn’t just lose, he lost so badly he’s walking away from New Hampshire without winning one delegate. The takeaway isn’t that he can’t compete in an ultimate delegate count — it’s that his donors could easily get spooked by the fifth-place finish, suddenly putting him in danger of not even making it to his firewall in South Carolina.
Spiner: Elizabeth Warren was the biggest surprise to me. Her campaign’s first large-scale mobilization at New Hampshire Democratic Party’s convention in September was so impressive activists there saw her as the clear frontrunner. Even a month ago, most of the state’s top political minds from across the spectrum thought she had the best ground game.
But her stunning defeat here has activists scratching their heads about how such a well-run operation, one with all the trappings of a traditional New Hampshire campaign — extensive town halls, volunteer offices throughout the state and a strong ground game — could falter. Perhaps it speaks to how nationalized the 2020 primary has been the whole time.
How will New Hampshire change the race heading into Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday?
Otterbein: Sanders will raise a ton of money tonight, and he’s going to spend it across the map of upcoming states while some of his rivals have to work around cash shortages. Will Sanders get a polling surge as well from tonight’s win, and if so, how big will it be? Polling this week showed that Sanders enjoyed a small bounce out of Iowa, but it wasn’t huge. Perhaps this time will be different because New Hampshire didn’t produce a days-long vote-counting debacle.
Meanwhile, progressives and moderates are going to debate among themselves about whether and how to consolidate support around candidates with momentum to ensure their side of the party wins the nomination. It looks especially thorny on the moderate side: Klobuchar’s surge, Biden’s collapse and Buttigieg and Klobuchar’s struggles with voters of color all raise difficult questions.
Spiner: A lot of Democrats are going to have to learn how to pronounce Buttigieg and Klobuchar. New Hampshire voters are already taking credit for giving two candidates who started with little money and funny last names enough attention to get the rest of the country to pay attention. „That’s what the first in the nation primary is all about,” said a party activist.
Siders: Biden and Warren still see paths forward. In giving new life to Klobuchar, the most immediate contribution of New Hampshire was to further muddle the field.
There are now at least five credible candidates moving out of New Hampshire. Add Tom Steyer — who polls well in South Carolina and has money to spend — and Michael Bloomberg, and there are seven. So we should expect a protracted fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Korecki: The New Hampshire primary will impact fundraising going forward. We should expect Klobuchar to keep adding to her cash haul after this surprise third-place showing. The same goes for Buttigieg. By contrast, Biden’s going to struggle. Back-to-back devastating losses aren’t going to sell with the big donors he relies on to power his campaign.
Thinking back to where the campaign was a month ago, what is most striking about what happened in New Hampshire Tuesday night?
Siders: As surprising as Klobuchar’s rise was, Biden’s drop was just as severe. Before Biden’s expectations-lowering tour, he was running about even with Bernie Sanders in some polls.
But the 2020 campaign is about electability, and right now, Biden doesn’t look to Democratic voters like a winner.
Otterbein: A month ago, Biden was neck-and-neck with Sanders in New Hampshire polls and leading national surveys. Tonight, he finished fifth in New Hampshire and is now second in national polling. His electability argument has taken a stunning blow.
Korecki: Amy Klobuchar’s rocket to the top tier is kind of mind-blowing. She beat a former vice president tonight and she beat Warren, who was predicted to end up at least competitive with Bernie Sanders, given that she’s from Massachusetts. This sets up Klobuchar nicely for the next stretch of the campaign. But it’s also likely to give her a turn in the hot seat, something she’s largely avoided by polling in fifth or sixth place for so long.
Spiner: In a short period of time about a month ago, I wrote stories about Andrew Yang being so flush with cash the campaign was unsure exactly where to spend it and Michael Bennet getting a chance to impress moderate voters. I sat down for an hour-long coffee with Deval Patrick so he could explain his path to victory and bumped into Tulsi Gabbard any number of times around town — she essentially moved here.
At the time, there was a sense that voters might give them a chance. In the end, they weren’t willing to take a risk, and now, every one of those candidates is either out of the race or officially an irrelevant factor in it.
Source: politico.com
See more here: news365.stream
