Heidi M. Przybyla

USA TODAY

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s Democratic primary Tuesday, soundly defeating Hillary Clinton in the state that helped revive her presidential campaign eight years earlier.

“Together we have sent the message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California," Sanders told supporters. "And that is that the government of our great country belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy contributors and their super PACs.”

He said the message voters sent was that it was "too late for the same-old, same-old establishment politics and establishment economics. The people want real change." His overwhelming victory ensures the Democratic nominating battle will remain fierce over the next several contests and continue at least into the month of March.



In her speech, Clinton began by congratulating Sanders and acknowledging that people are "angry."

“They’re also hungry, they’re hungry for solutions," she said. “Now we’re going to take this competition to the entire country," she said.

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She also addressed the challenges she'd face in winning over a demographic that's been key to Sanders' success. “I know I have some work to do, particularly with young people."

Despite polls showing her well behind, Clinton campaigned vigorously in the state that she won in 2008 and that made her husband, Bill Clinton, the "comeback kid" in 1992 after he battled back to finish a closer-than-expected second to former senator Paul Tsongas, from neighboring Massachusetts.

While Sanders held double-digit leads over Clinton in Granite State surveys, she had hoped an aggressive push by an army of grass-roots volunteers and local politicians, such as New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, along with the star power of Bill Clinton, would bring her within single digits of Sanders. "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up," Clinton said at a rally in Hooksett.

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Sanders' win in New Hampshire comes a little more than a week after Clinton narrowly defeated him in the Iowa caucuses and will now create concern that Sanders can chip away at her southern firewall in states like South Carolina.

In a memo released as polls closed Tuesday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook acknowledged the former secretary of State and Sanders had split the first two contests, which is an outcome, he said, "we've long anticipated."

He also attempted to shift the focus to upcoming contests in Nevada and South Carolina and a host of states that vote on March 1. The first four states only represent 4% of the delegates needed to secure the nomination, while the March states account for more than half of the delegates and "better reflect the true diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation,” Mook wrote.

Sanders' win marks something that hasn’t happened in the New Hampshire Democratic primary since Gary Hart beat Walter Mondale in 1984 — an insurgent defeating a party favorite backed by significant institutional support, said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire.

“He should get due credit for that,” Scala said ahead of the primary. “New Hampshire often flirts with the insurgent and then comes back home."

Sanders' decisive margin of victory — around 20 percentage points — means he succeeded in broadening his appeal beyond the state’s traditional independent voters to win over blue-collar, moderate Democrats. That’s a constituency that could help him in future contests in the South and the industrial Midwest. CNN exit poll data revealed deep anxiety over the nation's economy. About four out of 10 voters said life for the next generation would be worse than life today, while nine in 10 said they thought the economy favors the wealthy.

Tuesday’s outcome is unlikely to provide much clarity in a race that could stretch well into the spring, however.

“New Hampshire doesn’t answer the $64,000 question, which is how Sanders will play with minorities,” said Scala. The next contests, a caucus in Nevada on Feb. 20 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 27, will hinge on Latino and black-voting populations that remain more favorable to Clinton.

New Hampshire's result is in part a referendum on Sanders’ anti-Wall Street call for political revolution and single-payer health care versus Clinton's approach that seeks to build on programs championed by President Obama.

Yet that message is also muddled by independent voters like Don Doucette, a 67-year-old retiree who pulled the lever for Sanders.

“Not because I like him,” Doucette said. “I don’t want to see Hillary win." He added that he may vote Republican in the general election.

Sanders can’t rely in future contests on independents who account for more than 40% of the electorate in New Hampshire and can vote in either primary.

Still, the Clinton campaign is girding for a long battle as they attempt to avoid the mistakes of 2008. This includes devoting more resources to future caucus contests like Colorado and Minnesota instead of focusing only on delegate-rich states like Ohio and Florida.

The campaign also tamped down news reports of potential staff upheaval after a razor-thin win in Iowa last week ahead of the outcome in New Hampshire. “There is zero truth to what you may be reading,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said on Twitter regarding reports Monday about a post-New Hampshire staff shake-up.

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In the closing days of the New Hampshire campaign, Clinton made a major push to drive up her support with women, who were key to her come-from-behind win in the Granite State eight years earlier. However, some of her surrogates drew criticism in a final effort to court young female voters, a group Sanders has been polling well with.

Former secretary of State Madeleine Albright, seemingly in jest, said on Saturday, "There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other." Exit polls also showed Clinton lost the female vote in New Hampshire.

Contributing: Chrissie Thompson, The Cincinnati Enquirer

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