Eight years ago, New Hampshire breathed life back into Hillary Clinton’s ailing presidential campaign after her disastrous third-place finish in Iowa.

This time around, the first-in-the-nation primary state is shaping up to be the tougher early-voting-state battleground — Clinton allies are willing to acknowledge she could lose it to Bernie Sanders, the senator from neighboring Vermont who is currently leading in the polls.


On Tuesday, her final road trip of the year, Clinton campaigned through slick roads and snow showing how hard she is willing to fight for a victory.

“I need all of you to be part of this campaign,” Clinton implored about 900 New Hampshire residents who packed the pews at the 200-year-old Unitarian South Church in Portsmouth for her first town hall of the day. “In many ways, you are the first, or depending on how you define it, the last line of defense. The decision that New Hampshire makes is so important.”

Trailing Sanders by about 9 percentage points in the latest state polls, Clinton is campaigning hard — she made the three-hour haul through 10 inches of snow to Berlin, the northernmost city in the state, for the day's second town hall. Her supporters were quick to point out that Republican Jeb Bush, in contrast, canceled his Peterborough event because of the weather.

As she spoke in the church, her campaign announced three more town halls across the state on Sunday. Her Democratic rivals, meanwhile, were campaigning in Iowa.

“I’m excited and very much looking forward to the sprint toward the primary,” Clinton told a crowd full of children out of school for the holidays. “As you know, I’ve had two full town hall meetings just on the issue of substance abuse. When I made a list of what I was going to talk about on my campaign, it wasn’t on that list. But on my first trip [to Keene], that was what was raised with me.”

Clinton did not mention Donald Trump or any of the Republican candidates, which she often does during her town halls, even after Trump stepped up his attacks on Bill Clinton. Instead, she kept the message focused on her own programs. She highlighted the $2 billion Alzheimer’s plan she unveiled last week, a strong issue for Democrats, who consistently lose the senior vote and need an issue that can show how government investment matters in people’s daily lives.

The most memorable moment of the town hall came after a Liberian man in the audience mentioned that his country has already elected its first female president, and Clinton rose to the occasion to demonstrate her mastery on international issues.

“The president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has been elected twice ... has been an extraordinary leader,” Clinton said, launching into a short history of modern-day Liberia. “She inherited an economy and government that was bankrupt. They had this terrible civil war that had just destroyed so much of the productive capacity in addition to taking so many lives ... and a lot of Liberians left Liberia because of a lack of safety. She has been incredibly focused on trying to improve the government, improve the economy, then she was dealt the terrible blow of Ebola.”

On Monday, the campaign is unleashing President Bill Clinton for his first solo campaign event on his wife’s behalf, hoping he will bring enthusiasm to the state he claimed made him “the Comeback Kid” in 1992.

“New Hampshire loves Bill Clinton, and it’s mutual,” said Terry Shumaker, who co-chaired both of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns in the state. “He can tell you how many wards he won in Nashua in 1992. He and John McCain are in a class by themselves for politicians from another state that are truly beloved here.”

It's all part of the final push, an effort preceded by months of expectation-lowering from Clinton allies who point out Sanders is a near-native-son candidate who appeals to white, independent voters. His own campaign operatives have already signaled the state’s importance to his bid, calling New Hampshire a “must-win” state, and built a ground organization that is larger than Clinton’s.

Sanders currently has between 80 and 90 paid staffers working out of 15 field offices across the state, according to a campaign official. The bulk of the work, however, is done by an army of 5,600 volunteers. Clinton, in contrast, has 11 field offices with 50 paid staffers and 7,643 volunteers who have been involved at some point with the campaign, according to a Clinton campaign official.

Clinton officials are channeling less enthusiasm and certainty about victory here, trying instead to keep their heads down. “It’s not a state that comes easy for anybody,” said one source close to the campaign.

For Sanders, New Hampshire is the best shot at keeping the campaign alive. “Obviously, we need to win early to make it clear to people that Bernie can win the nomination,” Sanders senior strategist Tad Devine said in an interview. “Obviously New Hampshire is the place where independents participate in large numbers, and he polls well with independents. That’s the place we can expect we can do best.”

But Devine also said he anticipated a tough battle ahead. “She’s won here, we haven’t,” he said. “By the time New Hampshire comes, she’ll have had six months of TV advertising, we will have had three. She has broad political support among most elected officials in both states; that’s a big advantage. She has a lot of advantages.”