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Live coverage: Democrats vote in the New Hampshire primary

Barack Obama's vice president was meant to be the favourite for the Democratic nomination. Now, Joe Biden is suddenly in massive trouble.

Sam ClenchSam Clench
@SamClench
less than 2 min read
February 12, 2020 - 10:18AM
US Election: Which Democratic candidate will take on Trump?

Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire primary, solidifying his status as the new frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It was Mr Sanders' second consecutive victory in the state, having racked up a whopping 60 per cent of the vote against Hillary Clinton four years ago.

This time, with far more candidates in the race, the result was much closer. Mr Sanders claimed 26 per cent of the vote, narrowly beating former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, who finished with 24 per cent.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who was previously considered only an outside chance to win the nomination, reinvigorated her campaign by surging into third place with 20 per cent.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren found herself a distant fourth, stuck in single digits with 9 per cent.

And shockingly, former vice president Joe Biden - supposedly the favourite for the nomination - finished even further behind in fifth, with just 8 per cent.

After Mr Biden's equally tepid performance in Iowa a week ago, and with the news that Mr Sanders has passed him in national polls, it's fair to say Mr Biden has now relinquished that frontrunner status.

Read on for all the news from a dramatic election night in the United States.

Updates

'Stench of death' around Biden

So, let's sum up today's result in New Hampshire. How did the five leading candidates for the Democratic nomination perform?

Three of them will be happy.

Bernie Sanders has now won the popular vote in both Iowa and New Hampshire, albeit narrowly in both cases. He has also consolidated support from the party's more progressive voters.

In his victory speech earlier, Mr Sanders said he was building an "unprecedented" movement, spanning multiple generations and racial groups. The guy oozes confidence.

Pete Buttigieg technically won Iowa (on the pledged delegate measure used by the party), and now he has finished just barely behind Mr Sanders in New Hampshire, a state where Mr Sanders was always meant to be extremely strong.

It's a remarkable start to the campaign for Mr Buttigieg, who at 38 years old is both the youngest and least experienced candidate in the race.

But it's only going to get harder for him. The next states on the calendar are far more racially diverse, and he has yet to prove he can win support from the Hispanic and African American communities.

Amy Klobuchar was languishing well behind in the polls – until the presidential debate last Friday, where she performed strongly. As a result of that, she surged into third place today, finishing well ahead of more fancied candidates.

The moderate Senator from Minnesota believes she is the person who can win over moderates, and even some voters who sometimes lean Republican, to beat Donald Trump in the general election.

But her slow start to the campaign means she does not have the same level of fundraising or organisation on the ground as Mr Sanders and Mr Buttigieg. That will be tested in next coming contests.

And now we come to the two losers.

Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Both were stuck in the single digits. Both will now face questions about the viability of their campaigns going forward.

"They've both taken on the stench of death," a staffer on a rival campaign – not exactly a neutral source, I'll grant you – told New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi as the New Hampshire results rolled in.

The staffer said Mr Biden's events in the last week had "all the enthusiasm of a wake", and Ms Warren was "never going to out-Bernie Bernie" for the support of progressive voters.

It might be a biased take, but it's also accurate. Both candidates are in serious trouble.

Mr Biden in particular is pinning his hopes on Nevada and South Carolina, where the electorates are more diverse. If he fails there too, it's hard to envision him continuing in the race.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham summed up the situation pretty well, comparing Mr Sanders' momentum to Donald Trump's four years ago.

Back then, anti-Trump Republican voters failed to coalesce around an alternative candidate, and that cleared his path to the nomination.

"For you moderates, it will either be (Michael) Bloomberg, Mayor Pete or Klobuchar. You need to pick one at this point. It's not going to be Biden. If you want to beat Sanders, you have to form a coalition now," Ingraham said.

Sanders claims victory ... in Iowa

Bernie Sanders got a rapturous reception from his supporters at Southern New Hampshire University.

He claimed victory in New Hampshire – and, strikingly, in Iowa as well.

"Let me take this opportunity to thank the people of New Hampshire for a great victory tonight," Mr Sanders said.

"The reason that we won this week in New Hampshire, we won last week in Iowa, is because of the hard work of so many volunteers. And let me say tonight, that this victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump."

You can consider that a dig at Pete Buttigieg, who was technically declared the winner in Iowa. Mr Sanders won the popular vote there, while Mr Buttigieg won more pledged delegates.

The short explanation for that is that the Iowa caucuses are unnecessarily weird and convoluted.

New Hampshire, however, is more straightforward. No one can dispute Mr Sanders' victory today.

He voiced his "appreciation and respect" for the other candidates, and said whoever ended up as the Democratic nominee would have the full support of the party.

"What I can tell you, with absolute certainty, and I know I speak for every candidate, is that no matter who wins – and we certainly hope it's going to be us – we are going to unite together and defeat the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country," Mr Sanders said.

He explained why he believed he would be elected the nominee.

"We have an unprecedented grassroots movement from coast to coast of millions of people," he said.

"We are putting together an unprecedented, multi-generational, multi-racial political movement.

"This is a movement that is demanding that we finally have an economy and a government that works for all of us, not wealthy campaign contributors."

And in another dig at Mr Buttigieg, Mr Sanders criticised his rival for accepting donations from billionaires.

"At this point in the campaign, we are taking on billionaires and we are taking on candidates funded by billionaires. But we are going to win because we have the agenda that speaks to the needs of working people throughout this country," said Mr Sanders.

"Our campaign is not just about beating Trump. It is about transforming this country."

Mr Buttigieg responded to that argument during last week's presidential debate, saying the Democrats would need every dollar available to them to beat Mr Trump.

Mr Sanders, on the other hand, doesn't seem to worried about the President's re-election war chest.

"Together, I have no doubt that we will defeat Donald Trump," he told the crowd before saying goodnight.

Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire

All the US networks are now declaring Bernie Sanders the winner of the New Hampshire primary.

With most of the votes counted, he leads Pete Buttigieg by a little under 2 per cent. Amy Klobuchar is in third place, another 4 per cent or so behind.

It's a much tighter result than the polls suggested, and it's certainly closer than four years ago, when Mr Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire by more than 20 per cent. But that was a two-way race.

Mr Sanders has now won the popular vote in both early states (he lost the declared delegate count to Mr Buttigieg in Iowa for reasons far too complicated to explain here).

Buttigieg swipes at Sanders in speech

Pete Buttigieg just addressed his supporters. He started by congratulating his rivals on their campaigns – singling out Bernie Sanders, who looks set to win New Hampshire.

"I admired Senator Sanders when I was a high school student, I respect him greatly to this day, and I congratulate him on his strong showing tonight," said Mr Buttigieg.

"And I want to congratulate Senator Klobuchar, Senator Warren, Vice President Biden and all of our Democratic supports."

Echoing his language from Iowa a week ago, Mr Buttigieg highlighted the rise of his unlikely candidacy.

"A campaign that some said shouldn't be here at all has shown that we are here to stay," said the 38-year-old, whose only political experience before now was as the mayor of a mid-sized city in Indiana.

"So many of you turned out. Die-hard Democrats. Independents unwilling to stay on the sidelines. And even some newly former Republicans ready to vote for something new. Ready to vote for a politics defined by how many we pull in, instead of how many we push out.

"We will welcome new allies to our movement at every step."

That last part summed up the core argument of Mr Buttigieg's speech – that the Democrats need to avoid alienating voters for the sake of ideological purity.

He didn't call out Mr Sanders by name, but it was an implicit criticism of the Senator from Vermont.

"We go forward knowing that this is our chance, our only chance, not only to end the era of Donald Trump but to launch the era that we know must come next," Mr Buttigieg said.

"We cannot afford to miss the mark or to miss this moment. We must get this right.

"When people of colour fear for their own place in their own country, while infants are torn from their parents at the border, we must get this right.

"When a commander-in-chief pardons war criminals and punishes war heroes, while systematically dismantling our reputation in the rest of the world, we cannot afford four more years of this presidency, we must get this right.

"We are clear-eyed about the challenge before us, and we must be equally clear about the choice at hand.

"We have been told by some that you must either be for a revolution, or you are for a status quo. But where does that leave the rest of us? We can't defeat the most divisive president in modern history by tearing down anyone who doesn't agree with us 100 per cent of the time.

"A politics of my way or the highway is a road to re-electing Donald Trump. Vulnerable Americans do not have the luxury of pursuing ideological purity over an inclusive victory."

He also addressed his inexperience, having never held office at the national level. Mr Buttigieg argued Washington needed the perspective of a midwestern mayor.

"A fresh outlook is what makes new beginnings possible. It is how we build a new majority," he said.

"Election after election has shown us that putting forward a new perspective is how Democrats win the White House. And we will win the White House."

Biden 'frontrunner in name only'

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino, who is now a Fox News analyst, had some blunt things to say about Joe Biden's performance and his prospects going forward.

"You look at Joe Biden, who's looking at a disastrous finish tonight, even worse than Iowa – Biden was the frontrunner in name only," Perino told host Tucker Carlson.

"For Biden, there's a feeling that people are sad. 'We're sorry this is happening, he's a real nice guy.' The fact that they left early today from New Hampshire gave the media six hours to run with a story that he was skipping town. Even though it made sense for him to go on to South Carolina."

When he spoke earlier, Mr Biden wrote off Iowa and New Hampshire as two states out of 50. Carlson mocked that argument.

"What matters if you want to win is winning. And the idea that you can sort of skip the first three contests and do well in the fourth – has that ever worked for anybody, ever?" he asked.

"It has not," Perino said.

Sanders looks like holding on

We're down to the last 20 per cent of precincts, and while it's still tight at the top, you would expect Bernie Sanders to hold on.

Pete Buttigieg is 5000 votes – or 2 per cent – behind.

If the numbers stay this way, however, it will a much closer result than the polls suggested it would be going in. Some had Mr Sanders ahead by as much as 10 per cent.

Picture: Decision Desk

Trump makes fun of 'Bootedgeedge'

Donald Trump is still working his way through the Democratic candidates. Now he's having some fun with Pete Buttigieg's hard-to-pronounce name.

Hillary Clinton gets involved

Hillary Clinton has now weighed in on the latest Trump controversy.

She's taken a swipe at the President for "intimidating" the judge in the case of his associate Roger Stone.

Trump mocks struggling candidates

Donald Trump is spending his evening trolling some of the Democratic candidates on Twitter.

So far his targets have been Mike Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren and Tom Steyer.

It's worth mentioning that Mr Bloomberg was not on the ballot. So that goes quite some way towards explaining his poor performance.

Race at the top tightens

While Mr Biden and Ms Klobuchar were speaking, some more results came in, showing the race tightening.

Seventy per cent of precincts have now been counted and Bernie Sanders leads by 2.2 per cent. That margin was 3.5 per cent half an hour ago.

You'd still bet on Mr Sanders winning, but it is looking less convincing.

Picture: Decision Desk

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