New Hampshire Primary: Polls Have Started to Close

Eight Democratic candidates mounted competitive campaigns in New Hampshire: Sanders; Buttigieg; Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; former Vice President Joe Biden; Klobuchar; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; and former hedge fund investor Tom Steyer. The eighth, the former tech executive Andrew Yang, ended his longer-than-long-shot bid for president Tuesday night.

Hailing from just over the border with Vermont, Sanders was the overwhelming favorite in the contest. If the two Midwestern moderates keep the margins close, it could presage a longer battle for the nomination.

Warren remains far behind, with early numbers that have to disappoint her supporters, despite an effort by her campaign to describe her path forward in terms of accumulating delegates on a district-by-district level, rather than carrying entire states.

Biden, who worked hard to lower expectations, is stuck in single digits. Two brutal losses may further undercut the central argument for his candidacy: That the former vice president is the most electable in the field.

Biden, who came in fourth in Iowa, effectively conceded defeat in New Hampshire days ago, when he predicted in Friday’s debate that he would fare poorly here. But he put an exclamation point on that forecast when he decided to leave the state before results were even known and head for South Carolina on Tuesday evening. Unless Biden fares substantially better in New Hampshire than even he seems to expect, South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary is shaping up to be something like a last stand for the former vice president.

Warren, who finished third in Iowa, also effectively signaled that she does not expect to win New Hampshire when her campaign sent a memo to supporters describing her path forward in terms of accumulating delegates on a district-by-district level, rather than carrying entire states. Warren herself continued to campaign aggressively Tuesday, vowing to “fight for every vote,” but there was no indication from her camp that it had hopes for an upset.

Most of the uncertainty here surrounds the three other major candidates: Sanders, Buttigieg and Klobuchar — most of all Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

A defeat here for Sanders, who effectively tied with Buttigieg for first place in Iowa, would be a disappointment, but it would not be likely to cripple his campaign because of the scale and intensity of his national support among progressives. For Klobuchar, who came in fifth in Iowa, and Buttigieg, the stakes are far higher. Without something close to victory here, either or both of them could find it difficult to build enough momentum over the remainder of February to finish strongly on Super Tuesday, when Michael Bloomberg — another moderate, but one with limitless financial resources — will also be on the ballot.

And Bloomberg loomed over several of the candidates, who took shots at his still-distant presence from the campaign trail in New Hampshire. Biden said in a television interview that he was looking forward to debating Bloomberg about his mayoral record and relationship with the black community, while Klobuchar said elsewhere that she did not believe the American people felt the need to elect an even richer leader to replace President Donald Trump.

Ward One here, in New Hampshire’s largest city, is an affluent precinct, and interviews with people emerging from their polling place Tuesday night revealed a number of highly informed voters.

Very highly informed.

It’s almost a cliché by now to say that voters in early nominating states can sound like political professionals in their discussions of electability, but, well, that’s because it’s often true.

Take Anand Natrajan and Kusum Ailawadi, a married couple who came to vote together — but not for the same candidate.

Natrajan, a scientist, said he had backed Sanders because he thinks he has “a realistic chance” to defeat Trump. But Ailawadi, a college professor, said she had written in Bloomberg, who is not even competing in the early nominating states, because she’s skeptical that the more progressive candidates can win the general election.

“Despite my being a really left-wing liberal myself, I know that’s not where the country is,” she said.

Both said they had decided at the last minute.

Then there’s Kristi Gaynor, who works at a health care company, came out of the polls with her infant and said she had voted for Warren because she thought “she has the best chance of winning against Trump.” Gaynor chose Warren over Sanders in part because she believed Warren was stronger against Trump.

As for the president, he was facing little serious competition on the ballot, but he still had a steady flow of Republicans showing up to vote for him. And they, too, said things that could have just as easily come from political strategists.

Tiffany Cripps, an office manager, said Trump “might make me cringe in the things that he says” but quickly added that she cared more about his performance.

“The economy is great, my 401(k) is up,” Cripps explained.

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— Buttigieg: ‘It’s been a fantastic day’

With less than an hour before New Hampshire polls closed, Pete Buttigieg thanked supporters and expressed optimism outside Bedford High School in Bedford.

“From before dawn until just before the polls are about to close, it’s been a fantastic day,” the former mayor said in remarks that lasted 40 seconds. “We’ve seen the energy across the state.”

The scene was a bit chaotic, as late-arriving voters walked through a sidewalk lined by sign-waving supporters of Buttigieg, Warren, Yang, and Trump.

After Buttigieg finished his brief remarks, he was swarmed by reporters and television camera operators.

“How are you feeling?” an MSNBC anchor asked.

“We’ve feeling very strong,” Buttigieg replied. “We’ll see the numbers coming in soon.”

An Australian television reporter tried to ask Buttigieg how he planned to appeal to younger voters. But at that moment Buttigieg’s personal assistant got her hair stuck in the Australian TV network’s camera. With both the photographer and the assistant walking backward in the scrum, her head was jerked backward.

“Careful, careful!” Buttigieg yelled, in an unusual-for-him moment of anger. “Stop moving!”

Everyone stopped. Buttigieg and his assistant collected themselves.

“That is a first,” he said, as he walked to his waiting SUV.

— High spirits at Sanders’ primary night party.

Supporters filled a college gymnasium for Sanders’ primary night party. Cheers echoed around the room as the big screen, which had been displaying the Sanders campaign logo, switched to CNN. Even bigger cheers came when CNN showed Sanders in first place with the votes flowing in.

Expectations in the room were high — for good reason. The state is in Sanders’ backyard, and he won the New Hampshire primary in 2016 against Hillary Clinton by 22 percentage points. Tons of reporters were here, and the fire marshal said he was expecting to let in 1,000 supporters, then assess if there was room for more. Anything less than a victory would be a major disappointment.

A stage was set up at the front of the room, with American flags and Sanders signs. Every time new numbers came in, there was more cheering.

Meanwhile, the Sanders campaign said it is raising more than $1 million per day.

Aides to Sanders said Tuesday that he had received 600,000 contributions in the first nine days of February, and topped 7 million contributions overall in his 2020 campaign as of Sunday.

That means the Sanders campaign was processing an average of 66,666 contributions per day during that nine-day period. His average donation in January was $18.72.

If his average donation stayed steady in February, Sanders was raising nearly $1.25 million per day, or $11.2 million overall in nine days.

That donation pace was significantly faster than it was in January, when the Sanders campaign raised $25 million. His campaign said it had received 1.3 million donations in January, a 31-day period, which comes to about 42,000 per day.

Other top campaigns have not released their fundraising totals for January or February.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .