Bernie Sanders supporters statewide and around the country rejoiced Tuesday night as the best turnout since 2008 in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary cast their votes for the Vermont senator. Sanders edged out former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg and held off the surging Amy Klobuchar to put him first in line for the Democratic presidential nomination at this still-early stage.
“I think he’s a real person and he hasn’t changed in four years,” said Jim Gillette of Dublin, who cast his vote for Sanders in the primary in 2016 and again at the polls on Tuesday. “I just think he’s a genuine person and he’s been around long enough and knows what has to get done.”
In 2016, Sanders had just one candidate to beat in the primary, Hillary Clinton, and he did so by nearly 60,000 votes. 2020’s margin would not be nearly so wide, with dozens still on the ballot and recent surges by Buttigieg and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar giving them respectable vote counts on Tuesday as well.
Sanders won New Hampshire with 75,110 votes reported as of press time Wednesday (26.2 percent of Democratic votes cast, excluding write-ins), with Buttigieg second (71,296, 24.9 percent) and Klobuchar third (57,753, 20.2 percent).
Locally, Sanders was even more popular than he was statewide; the independent senator won in all 16 towns the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript covers except Francestown, where he tied Klobuchar; Hancock, where Buttigieg won by about 40 votes; Sharon, which Buttigieg won 31-27, and New Ipswich, where Buttigieg won again, though every Democratic vote cast in New Ipswich combined (695) wouldn’t have beaten the 861 who voted for Trump on the Republican ballot. Statewide, Sanders claimed 26.27 percent of Democratic votes cast, excluding write-ins; locally, that number was up to 29.1 percent, with 3,076 of the 10,570 Democratic votes.
“I thought he has the best chance of beating Trump. I like what he stands for and I do like his forcefulness and positivity and I think he has the best chance,” Suzan Gillette of Dublin said.
Even with the popular vote win, Sanders receives the same amount of state delegates toward the nomination as Buttigieg, nine each.
For moderate voters still leary of Sanders pushing the needle to the left, the choice was between Buttigieg and Klobuchar. For the last month, Carole Munroe of Dublin went back and forth between the two. In the end, Munroe decided to support Klobuchar on Tuesday simply because she wants a moderate candidate to be the next president.
“I think she’s pragmatic and has common sense, and I’m hopeful she can bring this country together, although that might be a big challenge,” Munroe said. “I think we need someone who can bring this country back together and we need somebody who can bring honesty and integrity to the presidential office.”
Munroe wasn’t alone; Klobuchar, barely on the radar until her endorsements by the New York Times and Union Leader, kept her surge going in New Hampshire, garnering 20.2 percent of the vote and finishing third behind Buttigieg’s 24.9. However, neither moderate candidate performed as well locally as they did statewide. In the MLT coverage region, Buttigieg’s numbers dropped to 23.6 percent of the vote, and Klobuchar’s to 19.8.
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign had a disappointing day in New Hampshire, falling behind Klobuchar and finishing with just 9.1 percent. The Warren campaign spent a lot of time painting the MLT region liberty green, and that did show up in the results, as she grabbed 9.8 of the local vote. Biden, whose support has been rapidly waning, pulled up stakes and headed to South Carolina midday Tuesday. He finished at 8.5 percent in New Hampshire, and did even worse locally, with 7 percent.
With early poll numbers indicating that neither Andrew Yang nor Michael Bennet would be competitive in New Hampshire, both candidates announced the end of their presidential campaigns Tuesday.
Despite what CNN reported as record-setting turnout, reporting went relatively smoothly as compared to the disastrous Iowa caucus.
Antrim had 100 votes logged by 9:10 a.m., volunteers said.
“We’re trying not to be Iowa,” Supervisor of the Checklist James Creighton said.
The remaining candidates will look to continue their momentum or pick up the pieces at the Nevada primary on Feb. 22, followed by the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29 and then the 11-state Super Tuesday on March 3.
Aside from his lead in the horse race, history tells us Sanders has the best shot at the Democratic nomination. No candidate in the past 40 years has won both Iowa and New Hampshire and failed to become the Democratic nominee. But with Sanders’ New Hampshire margin razor-thin, the race is far from over, though voters like Eric Blackmer of Peterborough hope the Granite State results are a sign of things to come.
“To me, Bernie’s the candidate most likely able to beat Trump, because he’s consistent,” Blackmer said. “He’s been the same for over 40 years. You listen to his speeches from the ’90s and he’s talking about the same things,” Blackmer said. “I’ve been checked out of politics for years, Bernie’s the first person that’s brought me back in because I believe he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.”
Abbe Hamilton, Meghan Pierce and Tim Goodwin contributed to this story.