Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders acknowledges the crowd during his victory speech to supporters Tuesday at Concord High School in Concord, N.H. (CJ Gunther/European Pressphoto Agency)

It was impossible, then improbable, and then it was almost too easy. Sen. Bernie Sanders had won the New Hampshire primary, his smiling face dominating the big TV screen at Concord High School just seconds after 8 p.m. It was up to the 200-odd people who had made it to the room already to cheer, high-five and wave signs for the cameras.

“I know the polls were saying that, but it’s still awesome,” said Max Furerder, 25, who works two jobs on Long Island and drove to New Hampshire for the Vermont senator’s final push. “I’ll never get sick of cheering for this guy.”

The cheers quieted, then rose again, when the television announced that Hillary Clinton would concede. “Keep it coming, baby,” said Victor Demeroto, 48, a New Hampshire man who had once — he admitted ruefully — admired Chris Christie.

Weeks of spin and voter data had prepared New Hampshire for this, and in the moment it looked like any other win. But there had never been a win like this. A democratic socialist was never supposed to win this primary, no matter if he could drive to some precincts from his home state next door.

That is not who wins this state. New Hampshire Democrats had, in the past, rewarded the budget-balancing sobriety of Sen. Paul Tsongas, the stay-the-course neoliberalism of Al Gore, the “ready on Day One” safety of, yes, Hillary Clinton. Some of the people cheering for Sanders, such as 63-year old Peri Stockinger, had once organized for Eugene McCarthy. And even he lost New Hampshire.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thanked supporters for high voter turnout after winning the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9. (Reuters)

“I never doubted that this could happen,” said Jonathan Tasini, a New York labor activist who had run against Clinton in the 2006 U.S. Senate primary. He had gotten creamed, as Sanders was supposed to. “He proved that he could raise the money. Now, the question is whether he can get known. And this” — he pointed at Wolf Blitzer on the television screen trying to explain what just happened — “gets him there.”

By the day of the primary, as the faithful admitted, Sanders’s victory had started to look inevitable. Some people at the victory party asked journalists what sort of margin could actually be read as a win. Ten? Fifteen? Twenty?

“I mean, 15 would be pretty good,” said Sue Kiley, 64, who had gassed up her car weekend after weekend and drove from eastern Vermont to canvass for Sanders.

The awareness of those optics, and of the unavoidable media spin to come, had kept organizers busy. In Concord, it looked as though everyone was voting for Bernie. Tuesday afternoon, the campaign dispatched a few of the musicians who’d been playing pro-Sanders concerts to a coffee shop; then, seeing few voters, they walked them to a polling place. There was no question here that a President Sanders could fix the country, because he had identified the problem with the country.

“I’ve seen a lot of people die because of this system,” said Xavier Dphrepaulezz, a musician who performed under the name Fantastic Negrito and wore socks patterned with voodoo dolls. “We can’t continue on this path as a country.”

At the polling place, Fantastic Negrito joined other musicians in a rendition of “This Land Is Your Land.” Fox News was invited to film it — Fox News, which may represent everything Sanders is against.

Eight years ago, when Barack Obama was the “change agent” of Democratic Party politics, he did not threaten the accepted narrative the way Sanders is doing today. He had reacted to a narrow loss in New Hampshire with the “Yes, we can” speech, which musicians turned into a song, devoid of irony. Wyclef Jean had found poetry in Obama’s promise to give a “seat at the table” to the drug and insurance industries and to “bring doctors and patients, workers and businesses, Democrats and Republicans together.”

1 of 42 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Highlights from Bernie Sanders’s campaign, in pictures View Photos The senator from Vermont has become Hillary Clinton’s chief rival in the contest for the Democratic nomination. Caption The senator from Vermont is Hillary Clinton’s rival in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. June 14, 2016 Bernie Sanders arrives at the Capital Hilton to meet with Hillary Clinton in D.C. Matt McClain/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

Sanders would never cut a deal.

Back at the Concord campaign headquarters, Sanders’s army was inviting international media to watch how it would win.

A trio of new friends, all of them regular travelers from Connecticut, had come off a successful canvass to recharge. They sat underneath homemade signs, stenciled with Sanders’s glasses and fringe of hair, and some signs that recommended answers to skeptics.

“Is Bernie a starry-eyed idealist who can’t get things done?”

“No, Bernie is the amendment king!”

“Is Bernie electable?”

“Yes!”

The Connecticut volunteers, all in their early 20s, had avoided electoral politics until Sanders arrived on the scene. They had discovered him in 2010, when he filibustered the compromise that saved most of the Bush tax cuts. Then they had wound into the Occupy movement.

“I’m kind of addicted to Bernie,” Mark Gardner, 24, said with a laugh.

“As the Occupy movement grew, he was one of the only politicians who seemed to support it,” said Dave Coffey, 23.

Before they headed back out to work, someone asked if the volunteers had too many sandwiches. Someone else answered that there was a food bank nearby that could take them. This was a bigger immediate problem than whether Sanders could win — he would.

“Half of the country will be terrified if Bernie wins. Half will be delighted,” Fantastic Negrito said. “Maybe we’ve always been that divided and I just didn’t notice.”

There would be time to find out. First there was the victory party, and the sweet victory, at 9:15, of seeing a defeated Clinton break into cable to concede and echo Sanders’s campaign platform, the one that had seemed impossible not so long ago.

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