Sen. Bernie Sanders jumped out Hillary Clinton to a big lead this time.
Exit poll data showed Democratic voters here overwhelmingly sharing Sanders' views.
In a speech to supporters gathered at Concord High School in the state's capital, Sanders said, "The people of New Hampshire have sent a profound message" to the political, economic and media establishments: "The people want real change."
His campaign "is about having the courage to reject the status quo," Sanders said.
Taking note of what appears to have been a record turnout for a primary in the state, Sanders said his campaign had generated the sort of "excitement that the Democratic Party will need to succeed in November."
But, even as he vowed to "take the fight to Nevada, South Carolina" and the states that will vote later in the spring, Sanders also issued a call for Democratic unity, which he pointedly said was aimed at his supporters as well as Clinton's.
"We need to come together in a few months and unite this party," he said. "Because the right-wing Republicans we oppose must not be allowed to gain the presidency."
A few minutes earlier, in a brief speech to her supporters, Clinton, flanked by former president Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, congratulated Sanders and vowed to "fight for every vote in every state."
"The real differences in this race" are over which candidate could most effectively bring about the changes the country needs, Clinton said. "A president has to do all parts of the job for all Americans," she said.
"I know I have some work to do, particularly with young people," Clinton said.
"I also know what it's like to stumble and fall," she said, adding in a line she often attributes to her mother: "We've learned it's not whether you're knocked down that matters; it's whether you get back up."
As Clinton noted, young people did overwhelmingly support Sanders in the primary, much as they did in Iowa a week ago. Surveys of voters at polling places, conducted for the television networks and the Associated Press, showed some 8 in 10 of those under 30 voted for Sanders. Clinton won the senior vote, but by a much slimmer margin.
The exit poll did offer some comfort for Clinton: Majorities of Democratic primary voters would be happy with either candidate as their nominee. About 8 in 10 said they would be happy with Sanders and roughly two-thirds would be happy with Clinton.
Political independents made up about 40% of the New Hampshire electorate, according to the exit poll. In many other primary states, independents can’t participate as easily as they can here.
While the findings may give Clinton backers some confidence about the future, the exit poll offered little doubt that Tuesday’s electorate belonged to Sanders.
Voters here were clearly more liberal even than those who turned out last week in Iowa.
For example, New Hampshire Democratic primary voters divided about evenly on the question of whether the next president should continue Barack Obama’s policies or adopt more liberal ones. In Iowa a majority favored continuity.
More than two-thirds of primary voters called themselves “liberal” or "very liberal," with about one-quarter saying “very liberal.” Those shares were up significantly compared with 2008, reflecting a Democratic party that has moved to the left.
One-third of primary voters said Clinton is not liberal enough, while just over half said she is about right on the issues. About one-quarter said Sanders was too liberal, but about 7 in 10 said his issue positions were about right.
Nine-in-ten said the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy – one of Sanders’ key arguments. Two-thirds said they support a single-payer healthcare system and about one-third said income inequality was the most important issue to them. Sanders beat Clinton handily among that group.
Clinton did beat Sanders on the question of who would best handle an international crisis.
Tuesday’s voters cared about having a candidate who agreed with them more than other factors. Only about 1 in 10 said “electability” was the most important attribute in a presidential candidate.
The voting came after an aggressive, last-minute push for her by Bill Clinton, the prodding of young women voters by former secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem and appeals from the state’s popular governor and U.S. senator. None of that appeared to have done much to get Sanders supporters to reconsider. Indeed, some comments by Hillary Clinton’s supporters may have backfired.
“I think he’s doing fantastic,” said Tom Estabrook, 64, as he prepared to vote for Sanders in Bedford, just west of Manchester, the state’s largest city.
“Look at the line for people registering to vote? It’s fantastic. It is a lot of young people,” Estabrook said, pointing to a queue of new and undeclared voters snaking all the way down a hallway at Bedford High School, waiting as long as an hour to register. Several had, indeed, been drawn to vote for the first time by Sanders.
In interviews, new voters said they had made up their minds weeks ago, and their resolve had only intensified as the Clinton campaign aggressively sought to raise doubts about Sanders’ qualifications and campaign tactics.
“All the other candidates, I don’t see them to be fit to be president,” said Sanders supporter James Frain, a 20-year-old who was voting for the first time.
Sanders spent the final days on the campaign trail here in an uncharacteristically disciplined fashion, sticking to the same stump speech he has delivered for months and avoiding impromptu moments with reporters that risked drawing him into a tit-for-tat with the former president or other Clinton allies who had criticized him in recent days.
“If a lot of folks come out to vote, we are going to do just fine,” he told reporters. “It looks like a large turnout.”
The cheerful mood did not mean, however, that Sanders had mellowed. When a reporter asked what he had for breakfast, he responded characteristically.
“You think that is one of the major issues facing the American people?”
The mood on the other side of the campaign was notably less confident. Within Clinton’s operation, the conversations in the closing days of the New Hampshire campaign have focused not on whether she would lose, but by how much. Her aides fretted over whether she could narrow the gap to single digits, which would allow them to make the case that she had made a strong showing against a locally popular senator from a neighboring state.
Clinton is still widely viewed as the front-runner, with a new NBC/SurveyMonkey poll showing 71% of Democrats expect her to be the nominee.
Her campaign has sought to frame a New Hampshire loss as a one-off, and it is scrambling to consolidate support in the more hospitable states of Nevada and South Carolina, which vote next.
While voters descended on polling places, questions about a possible shake-up of Clinton’s staff hovered over her campaign. Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, denied media reports suggesting heads would roll. But the candidate also noted that after the New Hampshire results were in, her campaign would be “taking stock” of its strategy and reassessing where it might improve.
Even the fundraising pitch that was emailed to supporters from the Clinton operation mid-day Tuesday had overtures of resignation. The subject line was “No matter what happens tonight,” and it noted that Sanders went to the “extraordinary measure of outspending us on the airwaves 3-to-1 here in New Hampshire.”
Clinton nonetheless hit the campaign trail Tuesday morning, snapping selfies with supporters and chatting up voters. As she snapped one picture, she joked about what an expert she had become at it, mentioning the iPhone snapshot she took with Kim Kardashian earlier in the campaign.
“I've got so many different styles of selfies,” she told a group of supporters at a Nashua polling station, where she and her daughter, Chelsea, handed out Dunkin’ Donuts. “I feel like I could, like, write a guide.” She surprised a Trump supporter by shaking the woman’s hand.
One woman who appeared to be on her way to vote came over to Clinton and said it was in her “bucket list” to shake the “hand of the president.”
Bill Clinton chatted up some high school students at a separate stop.
Among the volunteers working for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday were scores of Arkansans who descended on New Hampshire to help her, as they did for her in 2008 and for her husband two decades ago. They call themselves the “Arkansas Travelers,” and they do this as a labor of love, paying for travel and lodging out of their own pockets. This week, there are 87 in all, ranging in age from 19 to 81.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, meanwhile, tried to explain to MSNBC viewers what Bill Clinton had meant on Monday night when he said at the campaign’s get-out-the vote rally: “Sometimes when I’m on a stage like this, I wish we weren’t married; then I could say what I really think. And I don’t mean that in a negative way.”
Shaheen said that was Bill Clinton’s way of saying he would prefer to be less constrained on the campaign trail. “They keep trying to reel him in and pull them back, but there’s really no stopping him,” she said.
Source : LA Times
Exit poll data showed Democratic voters here overwhelmingly sharing Sanders' views.
In a speech to supporters gathered at Concord High School in the state's capital, Sanders said, "The people of New Hampshire have sent a profound message" to the political, economic and media establishments: "The people want real change."
His campaign "is about having the courage to reject the status quo," Sanders said.
Taking note of what appears to have been a record turnout for a primary in the state, Sanders said his campaign had generated the sort of "excitement that the Democratic Party will need to succeed in November."
But, even as he vowed to "take the fight to Nevada, South Carolina" and the states that will vote later in the spring, Sanders also issued a call for Democratic unity, which he pointedly said was aimed at his supporters as well as Clinton's.
"We need to come together in a few months and unite this party," he said. "Because the right-wing Republicans we oppose must not be allowed to gain the presidency."
A few minutes earlier, in a brief speech to her supporters, Clinton, flanked by former president Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, congratulated Sanders and vowed to "fight for every vote in every state."
"The real differences in this race" are over which candidate could most effectively bring about the changes the country needs, Clinton said. "A president has to do all parts of the job for all Americans," she said.
"I know I have some work to do, particularly with young people," Clinton said.
"I also know what it's like to stumble and fall," she said, adding in a line she often attributes to her mother: "We've learned it's not whether you're knocked down that matters; it's whether you get back up."
As Clinton noted, young people did overwhelmingly support Sanders in the primary, much as they did in Iowa a week ago. Surveys of voters at polling places, conducted for the television networks and the Associated Press, showed some 8 in 10 of those under 30 voted for Sanders. Clinton won the senior vote, but by a much slimmer margin.
The exit poll did offer some comfort for Clinton: Majorities of Democratic primary voters would be happy with either candidate as their nominee. About 8 in 10 said they would be happy with Sanders and roughly two-thirds would be happy with Clinton.
Political independents made up about 40% of the New Hampshire electorate, according to the exit poll. In many other primary states, independents can’t participate as easily as they can here.
While the findings may give Clinton backers some confidence about the future, the exit poll offered little doubt that Tuesday’s electorate belonged to Sanders.
Voters here were clearly more liberal even than those who turned out last week in Iowa.
For example, New Hampshire Democratic primary voters divided about evenly on the question of whether the next president should continue Barack Obama’s policies or adopt more liberal ones. In Iowa a majority favored continuity.
More than two-thirds of primary voters called themselves “liberal” or "very liberal," with about one-quarter saying “very liberal.” Those shares were up significantly compared with 2008, reflecting a Democratic party that has moved to the left.
One-third of primary voters said Clinton is not liberal enough, while just over half said she is about right on the issues. About one-quarter said Sanders was too liberal, but about 7 in 10 said his issue positions were about right.
Nine-in-ten said the U.S. economic system generally favors the wealthy – one of Sanders’ key arguments. Two-thirds said they support a single-payer healthcare system and about one-third said income inequality was the most important issue to them. Sanders beat Clinton handily among that group.
Clinton did beat Sanders on the question of who would best handle an international crisis.
Tuesday’s voters cared about having a candidate who agreed with them more than other factors. Only about 1 in 10 said “electability” was the most important attribute in a presidential candidate.
The voting came after an aggressive, last-minute push for her by Bill Clinton, the prodding of young women voters by former secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem and appeals from the state’s popular governor and U.S. senator. None of that appeared to have done much to get Sanders supporters to reconsider. Indeed, some comments by Hillary Clinton’s supporters may have backfired.
“I think he’s doing fantastic,” said Tom Estabrook, 64, as he prepared to vote for Sanders in Bedford, just west of Manchester, the state’s largest city.
“Look at the line for people registering to vote? It’s fantastic. It is a lot of young people,” Estabrook said, pointing to a queue of new and undeclared voters snaking all the way down a hallway at Bedford High School, waiting as long as an hour to register. Several had, indeed, been drawn to vote for the first time by Sanders.
In interviews, new voters said they had made up their minds weeks ago, and their resolve had only intensified as the Clinton campaign aggressively sought to raise doubts about Sanders’ qualifications and campaign tactics.
“All the other candidates, I don’t see them to be fit to be president,” said Sanders supporter James Frain, a 20-year-old who was voting for the first time.
Sanders spent the final days on the campaign trail here in an uncharacteristically disciplined fashion, sticking to the same stump speech he has delivered for months and avoiding impromptu moments with reporters that risked drawing him into a tit-for-tat with the former president or other Clinton allies who had criticized him in recent days.
“If a lot of folks come out to vote, we are going to do just fine,” he told reporters. “It looks like a large turnout.”
The cheerful mood did not mean, however, that Sanders had mellowed. When a reporter asked what he had for breakfast, he responded characteristically.
“You think that is one of the major issues facing the American people?”
The mood on the other side of the campaign was notably less confident. Within Clinton’s operation, the conversations in the closing days of the New Hampshire campaign have focused not on whether she would lose, but by how much. Her aides fretted over whether she could narrow the gap to single digits, which would allow them to make the case that she had made a strong showing against a locally popular senator from a neighboring state.
Clinton is still widely viewed as the front-runner, with a new NBC/SurveyMonkey poll showing 71% of Democrats expect her to be the nominee.
Her campaign has sought to frame a New Hampshire loss as a one-off, and it is scrambling to consolidate support in the more hospitable states of Nevada and South Carolina, which vote next.
While voters descended on polling places, questions about a possible shake-up of Clinton’s staff hovered over her campaign. Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, denied media reports suggesting heads would roll. But the candidate also noted that after the New Hampshire results were in, her campaign would be “taking stock” of its strategy and reassessing where it might improve.
Even the fundraising pitch that was emailed to supporters from the Clinton operation mid-day Tuesday had overtures of resignation. The subject line was “No matter what happens tonight,” and it noted that Sanders went to the “extraordinary measure of outspending us on the airwaves 3-to-1 here in New Hampshire.”
Clinton nonetheless hit the campaign trail Tuesday morning, snapping selfies with supporters and chatting up voters. As she snapped one picture, she joked about what an expert she had become at it, mentioning the iPhone snapshot she took with Kim Kardashian earlier in the campaign.
“I've got so many different styles of selfies,” she told a group of supporters at a Nashua polling station, where she and her daughter, Chelsea, handed out Dunkin’ Donuts. “I feel like I could, like, write a guide.” She surprised a Trump supporter by shaking the woman’s hand.
One woman who appeared to be on her way to vote came over to Clinton and said it was in her “bucket list” to shake the “hand of the president.”
Bill Clinton chatted up some high school students at a separate stop.
Among the volunteers working for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday were scores of Arkansans who descended on New Hampshire to help her, as they did for her in 2008 and for her husband two decades ago. They call themselves the “Arkansas Travelers,” and they do this as a labor of love, paying for travel and lodging out of their own pockets. This week, there are 87 in all, ranging in age from 19 to 81.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, meanwhile, tried to explain to MSNBC viewers what Bill Clinton had meant on Monday night when he said at the campaign’s get-out-the vote rally: “Sometimes when I’m on a stage like this, I wish we weren’t married; then I could say what I really think. And I don’t mean that in a negative way.”
Shaheen said that was Bill Clinton’s way of saying he would prefer to be less constrained on the campaign trail. “They keep trying to reel him in and pull them back, but there’s really no stopping him,” she said.
Source : LA Times
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