The New Hampshire primary took place Tuesday—and unlike in Iowa, we actually already know who won. Senator Bernie Sanders has been declared the winner of the New Hampshire primary election, in an incredibly close race that once again had Pete Buttigieg tight on his heels. “Let me say tonight, that this victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Sanders said Tuesday night.
As of press time, Sanders had earned 26% of the vote in New Hampshire, with Buttigieg right behind at 24%. Sanders’ modest lead is a marked contrast from the 2016 New Hampshire vote, a blowout for the Vermont senator in which he trounced Hillary Clinton with 60% of the vote. The senator was heavily favored to win New Hampshire once again Tuesday, making his ultimate win an unsurprising turn, though Buttigieg was able to make bigger gains than some polls had predicted after his strong showing in Iowa. “Here in the state that goes by the motto ‘live free or die,’ you made up your own minds,” Buttigieg told supporters Tuesday night. “You asserted that famous independent streak, and thanks to you, a campaign that some said shouldn’t be here at all, has shown that we are here to stay.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night, however, was the strong performance by Senator Amy Klobuchar, who pulled off an unexpected third-place finish with 20% of the vote after benefiting from a strong debate performance on Friday that resulted in a last-minute surge. “Hello America, I’m Amy Klobuchar and I will beat Donald Trump,” the Minnesota senator said in a speech Tuesday night. “My heart is full tonight. While there are still ballots left to count, we have beaten the odds every step of the way.”
Not having such a great night in New Hampshire were Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden, who finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Neither candidate met the 15% threshold needed to earn delegates in the state. The outcome is a disappointing finish for both candidates—Warren came in with a home-field advantage, given she’s from neighboring Massachusetts, while Biden failed to come back from his disappointing Iowa performance. Both campaigns seemed to anticipate that they wouldn’t do well before the vote came in, however, with campaign moves Tuesday that preemptively shrugged off their New Hampshire results while looking forward to the primary’s subsequent votes. Warren’s campaign released a memo Tuesday afternoon touting the candidate’s chances going forward, predicting that the senator would be “the consensus choice of the widest coalition of Democrats in every corner of the country” by Super Tuesday on March 3. “Warren has proven the doubters wrong before,” Warren campaign manager Roger Lau argued in the memo. In an interview with MSNBC Tuesday night, Warren acknowledged that the results are “a disappointment, of course,” but pointed out that “98% of people still haven’t been heard from…and this is going to be a long primary process.” “We’ve got to stay in this fight with people who are counting on us,” Warren said. “This isn’t about fighting other Democrats, this is about fighting for the America we believe in.”
Biden, meanwhile, fled New Hampshire entirely on Tuesday, spending the evening instead in South Carolina, where he’s expected to fare better with the state’s more diverse constituency. “We just heard from the first two of 50 states. Two of them,” Biden said in South Carolina. “And where I come from, that’s the opening bell, not the closing bell. The fight to end Donald Trump’s presidency is just beginning.” The vice president emphasized that the primary race has still not heard from more than 99% of black and Latino voters, who Biden polls far better with than candidates like Buttigieg and Klobuchar. “So when you hear all these pundits and experts, cable TV talkers, talk about the race, tell them: It ain’t over man, we’re just getting started,” Biden said.