The most surprising rise, Klobuchar’s, followed an impressive debate performance, a week of packed events and a rise in the polls.
Klobuchar’s campaign said it planned to expand staffing in Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday states given Tuesday’s outcome. Inside the campaign’s New Hampshire war room, campaign aides were looking at how well she is doing in Sanders’ strongholds, like Laconia, a moderate city that Sanders ran away with in 2016 but where she is now doing well.
But there was evidence Tuesday of the improvisational nature of an upstart campaign on a tight budget. Her party had a cash bar, and Klobuchar’s campaign scrambled to set up an extra table and power cords for the unexpected crush of reporters who showed up.
Buttigieg’s second-place finish to Sanders could make it more difficult for him to make inroads in the states that follow — a challenge Klobuchar faces now, too.
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show that aired Tuesday, Buttigieg said that “voters of color who are laser-focused on defeating this president, more than anything else, want to know that you can actually win,” suggesting strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire could help him as the campaign turns to Nevada and South Carolina.
Still, the former South Bend, Ind. mayor has only 4 percent support among black Democrats, according to a Quinnipiac University poll Monday.
For moderate Democrats, the most closely watched candidate Tuesday may not be a centrist at all, but the progressive alternative to Sanders, Warren. Following a third-place finish in Iowa last week — and with polls suggesting she could tumble further in New Hampshire — many moderates feared that if Warren slipped out of contention, the party’s left flank would coalesce around Sanders.
Moderate Democrats were intently interested in Warren’s viability, hopeful that she might continue to draw some progressive support away from Sanders and split the left flank’s vote. The concern is especially pressing with so many centrist candidates dividing support, including billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is bombarding the country with his television ads.
The head of the state’s Young Democrats group said New Hampshire proved itself again as a place where low-profile presidential hopefuls can storm to national prominence.
„Two people who were basically unknown a year ago here are now being eyed by the entire country,“ Lucas Meyer said of Buttigieg and Klobuchar. „That’s what the first in the nation is all about.“
Elena Schneider, Myah Ward, and Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
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