Sanders and Trump Dominate New Hampshire Primary

Hugh Pebworth, Staff Writer

After Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary wins by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, it has become clear that the 2016 primary election season will not be an obvious race to predict.

Sanders won 60.4% to 38.0 % over Hillary Clinton in the Granite State, becoming the first Jewish candidate to ever win a primary election. Trump received 35% of the Republican vote, ahead of second place Governor John Kasich of Ohio, who came in at 15%. Both Sanders and Trump won by over twenty percent, and the race largely followed what polls had predicted before Tuesday.  

Sanders’ and Trump’s victories in New Hampshire means that a different candidate won in each party than last week at the Iowa caucus. Last Tuesday, Sen.Ted Cruz won the GOP race in Iowa by surprisingly taking 27.6% of the vote, beating Trump by 3% in a state that he was favored to win in the day of the caucus.  

The GOP’s order of candidates who finished after second place shifted as well, as more moderate establishment candidates did better in New Hampshire than in Iowa. Cruz finished third with 11.7%, followed by Jeb Bush, who increased his numbers in New Hampshire eight points ahead of his standing in Iowa to finish at 11.0%.  

Sen. Marco Rubio finished in fifth place at 10.6% in a disappointing turnout for his campaign after what many have described as a subpar ABC News Debate performance last week due his repetition of talking points in what candidate Gov. Chris Christie criticized as, “a memorized twenty-five second speech.” Rubio had finished a surprising third place in Iowa just a week ago at only four percentage points behind Cruz and one point behind Trump in a move that seemed to swing momentum in his favor.

In the Democratic race, Sanders clobbered Clinton by winning many key voter groups that have catapulted his campaign into contention with the former Secretary of State. Sanders has relied upon support from young voters between 18 and 29, winning 83% of this group’s vote as well as winning 78% of first time voters.  

Clinton, who has relied on the vote of women, lost younger women to Sanders 44% to 55%. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said while campaigning with Clinton that, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” Model Emily Ratajkowski rebutted this statement at a Sanders rally, saying “I want my first female president to be more than a symbol. I want her to have politics that can revolutionize.”

These sentiments represent a generational divide amongst women and Democratic voters over all as the only age group that Clinton won was 65+, and only by a margin of 9%. However, Clinton does have stronger support among African-American and Latino voters than Sanders, and these groups will play much bigger roles in upcoming primaries in Nevada and South Carolina on February 20th and 27th respectively.

The first primary and caucus have already shaken up both races, as Democrat Martin O’Malley and Republicans Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Rand Paul all suspended their campaigns after registering poorly in Iowa. Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina both dropped out of the Republican field after doing worse than expected in the nation’s first primary.  

Voters have begun speaking at the election booth, and the race that emerges in the next couple of weeks and months will continue to be shaped by them.