New Hampshire Primary: Polls Have Started to Close

Eight Democratic candidates mounted competitive campaigns in New Hampshire. They are: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former tech executive Andrew Yang, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former hedge fund investor Tom Steyer.

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 R. 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.

Here are some of the places we’re watching for early clues about how the candidates are doing.

Bedford: Four years ago, this affluent town was one of the few areas that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, and Buttigieg sees opportunity for him to gain support with his appeals to “future former Republicans.” He stopped at a polling place in the town to thank supporters just before polls closed. But it’s also possible that Klobuchar could make some inroads.

Claremont: A working-class town close to the Vermont border, Claremont flipped from backing Barack Obama — twice — to Donald J. Trump in 2016. Results here could offer a good barometer of white working-class views in a battleground state that’s been trending slightly more red.

Manchester and Nashua: The two largest cities in the state are some of the most racially diverse areas and include a huge part of the Democratic electorate. They’re a mix of blue- and white-collar workers, with a large number of Boston transplants living in the suburbs. A candidate who can run up their margins in these cities and the surrounding areas is probably headed for a good night.

Durham: Sanders will have to run up turnout in this town, the home of the University of New Hampshire. A Sanders rally with the Strokes brought out 7,500 people on Monday night. The size of his margin in this area will give a good indication of the kind of night he may have.

Biden’s campaign has long sought to tamp down expectations about his prospects in New Hampshire, arguing that Sanders and Warren have home-field advantages.

But now, after a disastrous fourth-place finish in Iowa, Biden is facing the possibility of a fourth- or even fifth-place result in New Hampshire.

Such a result would destroy the Biden camp’s efforts to claim the mantle as the moderate standard-bearer in the Democratic Party, threaten his fundraising and make it difficult to generate enthusiasm heading into Nevada.

Certainly, Biden could surprise here. And his campaign has made clear that whatever the New Hampshire result, Biden is committed to testing his theory that he will do best in later-voting, more diverse states like South Carolina.

The question is what the state of his money and momentum will be coming out of New Hampshire on Tuesday.

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 .