Sanders, Trump win New Hampshire
Clinton looking to more welcoming states
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders swamped Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, setting up showdowns in the South and West later this month.
With nearly 90 percent of the vote counted, Sanders held an overwhelming 60 percent to 38 percent lead.
While Sanders’ win was far from unexpected, the 74- year- old self- described democratic socialist from neighboring Vermont took time to savor the results.
“Together we have sent a message that will echo from Washington to Wall
Street, from Maine to California,” he told his cheering supporters in Concord, N. H., “that the government of this country belongs to all the people, not just to a handful of wealthy ( campaign) contributors.”
In what was more stump speech than victory acceptance, Sanders spoke for nearly half an hour, hitting on his progressive plans of Medicare for all, free college tuition, improved Social Security and veterans benefits, and an end to the current campaign finance system.
On primary night, the winner was never in question — the TV networks called the race for Sanders seconds after the polls closed, and Clinton telephoned Sanders minutes later to concede.
For Clinton, the former secretary of state who has been billed as the Democrats’ great female hope since the day she entered the race, the brutal primary loss was just another painful stop on what for her over the past few months has been a far rockier political road than anyone anticipated.
Although she eked out the narrowest of victories in last week’s Iowa caucuses, it was Sanders and his battalions of young, progressive voters who won the battle of the buzz there, coming within an eyelash of beating someone who led him by more than 30 percentage points as recently as October.
Clinton congratulated Sanders on the win but said the race is far from over.
“Now we take this campaign to the entire country,” Clinton said. “We’ll fight for real solutions that make real differences in people’s lives.”
As Clinton made her concession speech, you could almost hear the roar of the engines from the plane that would quickly whisk her from New Hampshire to more hospitable political climes.
“For Clinton, it’s get out of town and head on to South Carolina, where it’s likely to be a very different race,” said Barbara O’Connor, retired professor of political communication at Sacramento State University.
The demographics change dramatically at the next two stops, Feb. 20 with caucuses in Nevada and the Feb. 27 primary in South Carolina.
While Iowa and New Hampshire are small, heavily rural and far whiter than the country — and the Democratic Party — as a whole, the demographics will tell a different story after Tuesday night.
While New Hampshire is better than 91 percent white, blacks make up 28 percent of South Carolina’s population, and 28 percent of Nevada residents are Latino. Those percentages are likely even higher among Democratic voters.
For Sanders, it’s a matter of taking his populist message of a political revolution against the country’s establishment — Republicans and Democrats both — and persuading minority voters to join his crusade.
“This campaign is about thinking big, not small, and having the courage not to accept the status quo,” he said. “We will bring together blacks, whites and Latinos.”
But talking about that multiethnic coalition is far easier than actually building it, especially for a senator from a state where 95 percent of the residents are white and with a population with 200,000 fewer residents than San Francisco alone.
Sanders “has to reach out to those under 40 who believe politics have left them behind,” since they’re more liberal than Clinton, O’Connor said. “But this is a whole new game for Sanders. He’s not good with these ( ethnic minority) audiences, and they don’t know him.”
But his shellacking of Clinton gives him plenty of momentum leaving New Hampshire and a new answer for politicians and pundits who argue the country won’t elect a socialist as president.
“We won because we harnessed the energy and excitement the Democratic Party will need to succeed in November,” he said. “This is what will happen all over the country.”
While Clinton and her backers were upbeat Tuesday, arguing that better days are coming, she leaves New Hampshire as damaged goods and with plenty of worrisome questions about the direction of her campaign.
It was bad enough that a CNN exit poll found that she lost voters ages 18 to 29 by an 83- percent- to- 16- percent margin and was beaten among independent voters, who were allowed to vote in the Democratic primary, 72 percent to 25 percent.
But that same exit poll also found that Sanders beat Clinton among New Hampshire’s female voters, 55 percent to 44 percent.
Even before Tuesday’s vote, rumors were circulating about a campaign shakeup, with changes in a political team that didn’t realize just how serious a threat Sanders would be.
Clinton “has to get every surrogate on the planet to go to the next three primary states,” O’Connor said. “And she’s got to get some younger women and working mothers out there, not just old white men.”