New Hampshire
News from New Hampshire
NBC’s Brian Williams writes on the Daily Nightly blog, “On Monday afternoon in Manchester, New Hampshire, I called my executive producer in New York and said that we needed to pencil in more time than we had allotted for Andrea Mitchell's report on the Clinton campaign. It needed to be enlarged to include a 48-second sound bite of Hillary Clinton at a roundtable, answering a question about the campaign. She was tired, and she was emotional. She did what any of us would have, and have done at times: She briefly lost control of her emotions. At that very moment, while he was miles away and unaware of it, Barack Obama started to lose control of what we had been told was a commanding lead in New Hampshire.
“I am a son of New England -- my father is from Framingham, Mass., my parents met in college in Maine, and over a lifetime of immersion I came to know the psyche well. The core of the older, native New Hampshire population (albeit in a state that is rapidly changing) is still made up of the sons and daughters of the original Puritans. They take civic responsibility seriously, they take care of those who need it and they take pride in process. In modern political terms, they generally don't like negativity, they reward the downtrodden, they earnestly deliberate over their choice of candidate and they venerate the sturdy among us.
”In short, they are good people to have in your corner. Hillary Clinton was bloodied in New Hampshire. The people of New Hampshire saw it and didn't like it. They saw assumptions forming and didn't like them. Some felt they were being told what to think: the race was decided, Hillary was desperate and inauthentic. Worst of all -- and this was made very clear to me by more than one person -- when some in the media quietly doubted that Hillary Clinton's emotions at that roundtable were real (there was quiet snickering about an "acting job" born of an urgent need to seem normal) it was proof to them that cynicism had taken hold of the politics/media realm, and they simply refused to believe that.”
With 96% of precincts reporting, Clinton beat Obama, 39%-36% -- followed by Edwards at 17%, Richardson at 5%, and Kucinich at 1%.
The New York Times’ Nagourney writes, “Most strikingly for Mrs. Clinton, women in New Hampshire did what they did not do in Iowa: rally behind her. Women supported her by 47 percent to 34 percent, according to a survey of voters leaving the polls; women voters in Iowa had been evenly divided between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton campaigned in the final days of the contest with her daughter, Chelsea. She emphasized her sex in a debate of the candidates on Saturday night, in which John. Edwards, who placed third here, and Mr. Obama joined forces in attacking her. And in a gripping moment shown repeatedly on television on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton appeared momentarily overtaken by emotion when a questioner asked how she was enduring the strains of the campaign.” But: “For all the glee in her camp, she still faces big challenges. In Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton is facing an opponent who has been lifted on the wind of nationwide anti-Washington climate change.”
The Washington Post’s Balz: “New Hampshire proved to be the political firewall that the Clinton campaign long had hoped for. Just as New Hampshire voters saved Bill Clinton's candidacy 16 years ago, they revived Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's faltering presidential campaign Tuesday night. Clinton's battle with Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) now moves to Nevada and South Carolina, then to almost two dozen states, including California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois, that will hold contests on Feb. 5. Both campaigns are ready, and with two well-liked, well-funded and determined candidates, Democrats face a battle almost unlike any they have seen in a generation.”
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With 96% of precincts reporting, McCain got 37% of the vote, Romney 32%, Huckabee 11%, Giuliani 9%, and Paul 8%.
USA Today’s Susan Page writes that McCain, “trailing far behind months ago, decisively beat the better-funded, better-organized Mitt Romney… Political analyst Charles Cook called McCain's victory ‘the greatest comeback since Lazarus’ and attributes it to ‘an enormous vacuum in the Republican Party.’”
The Washington Post: “‘My friends, I'm past the age when I can claim the name “kid,” no matter what adjective precedes it,’ McCain told an ecstatic crowd here. ‘But tonight, we sure showed 'em what a comeback looks like. When the pundits declared us finished, I told 'em, 'I'm going to New Hampshire, where the voters don't let you make their decision for them.' ”
Politico: “McCain’s convincing back-from-the-dead victory among New Hampshire Republicans Tuesday has allowed him for the first time in months to see a plausible, though still harrowing, path to the GOP presidential nomination. The hope among McCain operatives is that the New Hampshire victory will lead to an infusion of badly needed contributions… Romney’s campaign, meanwhile, is on life support after distant second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire - both states where he had invested heavily in time and money.”
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Delegates won in NH tonight
Republican
McCain 7
Romney 4
Huckabee 1
Democrats
Clinton 9
Obama 9
Edwards 4
From NBC's Norah O'Donnell, Barbara Bernhard, and Adam Verdugo
Term limits aside, what if your candidate was running against
Bill Clinton in the New Hampshire primary? Let's look at how both
Obama and
Hillary supporters responded...
The vast majority of Obama's voters would have stayed with him: 73% for Obama, 23% for Bill Clinton.
Among Hillary's voters, it's a different story: More voters would have cast their ballots for Bill Clinton if it would have been possible to vote for him, 58% to 42%.
From NBC's Norah O'Donnell, Barbara Bernhard, and Adam Verdugo
A majority of the Democratic voters in New Hampshire say no question they want change: 54% for change versus 19% for experience. Of those who wanted change, Obama scored big getting 55% of the vote.
And while voters thought experience was less important than change, what's interesting is when you look at the voters who say experience is the most important, Clinton got 71% of those voters. Obama only got 5%. The difference, Hillary picked up the voters that went to Biden in Iowa.
NBC News reports, in the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton is the winner -- very narrowly, but she's the winner. Obama is second. Edwards is third.
From NBC's Norah O'Donnell, Barbara Bernhard, and Adam VerdugoSo far it's a very tight race on the Democratic side and it looks like the Iowa caucus results may not have had as big of an impact as so many thought it would.
One key factor: Nearly four-in-10 said they made up their minds in the last three days. This is the period when Barack
Obama was supposed to be benefiting from his big Iowa win. Apparently, not tonight.
As for the late deciders, Obama and
Clinton split that vote at 38% each. That is where Clinton is picking up voters.
Gender has been a big part of the story on the Democratic side, and we are seeing that there is a big gender gap. Clinton is doing much better among women today in New Hampshire than she did in Iowa. Women were the majority of New Hampshire voters -- 57%.
Obama is also doing well among those in their 30s, but Clinton is leading among voters 40 and older -- 43% to 28%. They accounted for about two-thirds of all voters today.
From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
McCain was interrupted no less than nine times while his supporters chanted for him ("Mac is Back," "USA," and "Michigan," to point out a few). To the delight of his supporters, McCain talked about his comeback status. "I'm past the age that I can claim the noun kid no matter what adjective precedes it, but tonight we sure showed them what a comeback looks like," McCain said at the Nashua Crowne Plaza, where he delivered his victory speech in 2000.
"When the pundits declared us finished, I told them, 'I'm going to New Hampshire, where the voters don't let you make their decision for them,'" McCain continued after a "Mac is Back" chant. "And when they asked, 'How are you going to do it? You're down in the polls. You don't have the money.' I answered, 'I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell people the truth.'"
Before McCain approached the podium to speak, his campaign played "Hail to the Chief," although he entered to the theme from "Rocky." After basking in the glow of the his win, McCain got down to business -- telling voters exactly how he would act as their President.
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From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
There is a real gender divide in this race. Obama leads among men, 42%-30%, and by a similar margin, Clinton leads among women, 47%-34%. This is a real difference from Iowa, where Obama actually BEAT Clinton among women.
He also defeated her in Iowa by wide margins among independents and young voters. Tonight, Obama leads among Independents (43%-31%) again, but not by the whopping margin he led by in Iowa. And he’s trailing among Democrats significantly (45%-34%). In Iowa, he actually beat Clinton by a point among Democrats. Among youth voters, he is way ahead among 18-24 year olds (61%-22%), but he is actually trailing among 25-29 year olds (37%-34%). The under-30 vote is about 18% of the vote, slightly lower than the 22% that came out in Iowa. The combined under-30 vote is 51%-28% Obama -- not as large a margin for Obama as it was in Iowa.
