Sanders Claims Victory in Too-Close-to-Call New Hampshire Race

(Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders claimed victory in a primary still too close to call in New Hampshire, where he hopes to cement his status as the Democratic frontrunner in a race that remains defined by the divide between progressives and moderates.

After polls closed Tuesday night in the Granite State, Sanders had 26.3% of the vote with 75% of precincts reporting. He was trailed by Pete Buttigieg with 24.1%, Amy Klobuchar with 19.6%, and Elizabeth Warren with 9.6%.

Sanders had counted on his lead in earlier statewide surveys to translate into a victory after a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses. Two national polls in the past two days showed the Vermont senator overtaking longtime front-runner Joe Biden, who was running a distant fifth in early New Hampshire results with 8.3% and headed to South Carolina well before the polls closed.

“Let me say tonight that this victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Sanders said to cheering supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, as chants of “Bernie beats Trump” filled the room.

Yet Sanders’ self-described democratic socialism may leave moderate voters casting about for a different candidate. Buttigieg and Klobuchar had surged in polls before the New Hampshire vote, and their strong showings in the Tuesday primary will give them a boost into the next round of nominating contests.

At stake in New Hampshire are 24 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, a small prize compared to Super Tuesday on March 3, when 14 states and territories including California and Texas vote. But it holds outsized importance because it is the first primary election of the 2020 nominating contests, followed by Nevada caucuses and South Carolina’s primary later this month.

One candidate who had captured voters’ imagination, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, lagged far behind in the early New Hampshire results and announced an end to his campaign on Tuesday evening. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet also ended his 2020 bid.

Buttigieg, who earned the most delegates from the bungled Iowa caucuses, could claim a measure of success with a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire, especially given that Sanders hails from neighboring Vermont.

“A campaign that some said shouldn’t be here at all has shown we are here to stay,” Buttigieg told supporters late Tuesday as results were being calculated. “We can’t afford to miss the mark or miss this moment. We must get this right.”

Klobuchar, a Minnesota senator, was also trying to claim the title of the electable moderate. She rose to third place in tracking polls taken after she closed Friday’s debate with a moving appeal to working-class voters who abandoned the Democratic Party for Trump in 2016. Her campaign said earlier Tuesday it had raised more than $4 million since the debate, and a person familiar with the matter said the organization would beef up staffing after her surge in New Hampshire.

Warren has long insisted that her broad organization will keep her going later into the nominating contest. On Tuesday, after polls closed in New Hampshire, she warned of a long fight, but said she was best positioned to beat Trump.

“We can unite this party and this country by mobilizing people behind ideas that are not only popular with huge majorities of the American people -- but that also accomplish structural change for our broken government and our rigged economy,” she told supporters.

Health care was the top issue for Democratic voters in Tuesday’s primary, followed by climate change, according to early exit polls reported by CNN. Thirty-seven percent chose health care, with 28% citing climate change, CNN said. About two in 10 rated income inequality as their top issue and one in 10 picked foreign policy, the network said.

Multi-state Dash

After Tuesday, the race accelerates and shifts into a multi-state dash that makes it impossible for candidates to make the personal connections with voters that Iowa and New Hampshire enjoy.

One candidate happy to turn attention to later contests is Biden, who packed up and left even before the polls closed. He addressed supporters on Tuesday night via live-stream from South Carolina, where he hopes to revive his flagging campaign. He has staked his candidacy on the argument that he’s best positioned to win in November. But without any primary victories, that argument gets harder to make.

“We’re moving into an especially important phase because up til now we haven’t heard from the most committed constituency of the Democratic Party: the African American community,” Biden said. “And the fastest growing segment of society, the Latino community.”

The results in New Hampshire may signal whether Warren, who finished a disappointing third in Iowa, can keep up her fight. On Tuesday, she doubled an aggressive fund-raising goal, asking supporters for $4 million before polls close. But she has sworn off big ticket events and instead relies mostly on small donations from grassroots supporters. Another poor showing could make it harder to persuade supporters to keep opening their wallets.

‘Grain of Salt’

Even those who watch New Hampshire politics are cautious about predictions. Former Democratic Governor John Lynch, who has endorsed Biden, said at a Bloomberg News roundtable in Manchester on Monday that polls showing Biden at best in third place should be taken with “a little grain of salt.”

Lynch recalled a poll in 2008 just before that year’s primary showed Barack Obama leading by low double digits. Hillary Clinton won by 2.6 percentage points on primary day.

Biden’s campaign has long said he expects to do better in later states like Nevada and South Carolina, where there are more Latino and African American voters.

But whether Biden can keep that support is an open question. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed Biden’s black support nationally plummeting from 49% on Jan. 28 to 27%, a drop of 22 percentage points.

Michael Bloomberg appeared to be the biggest beneficiary of the plunge, jumping 15 percentage points among black voters, from 7% to 22% over the same period. None of the other candidates saw their numbers change dramatically.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

Fundraising Crucial

Buttigieg, who has struggled to gain support with black voters, told “Morning Joe” earlier Tuesday he still had work to do in that area and looked forward to campaigning in South Carolina.

Cash will be key as the primary calendar moves onto bigger, more expensive states. All the top candidates insist they have the funds to continue through Super Tuesday, but it will be hard to raise money to keep up the fight without positive results to show for it.

Bloomberg’s candidacy changes all conventional thinking about spending and fundraising. He has already topped $300 million in advertising spending so far, eclipsing the rest of the field. He isn’t even competing in the early states and is instead spending lavishly on advertising around the country, including in Super Tuesday states.

As a result, he is on the cusp of qualifying for next week’s debate in Nevada with three polls showing him with national support above 10%. One more qualifying poll before Friday and he will be allowed on the stage.

(Updates with Buttigieg quote)

To contact the reporter on this story: Magan Crane in Manchester, New Hampshire at mcrane19@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Michael Shepard

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.