Derry, New Hampshire (CNN) Bernie Sanders has two feet down on the ground in New Hampshire, but even as he hits the campaign trail here, the echoes of Iowa -- and the lingering angst over Monday night's mess -- are still weighing on his mind.

Unable to declare victory or rationalize defeat, Sanders has begun stumping ahead of the Granite State primary next Tuesday with one eye on the slow-motion rollout of the caucus results, which have left the campaign in a state of frustrated suspense as Sanders -- like the rest of the Democratic primary field -- tries to craft a coherent narrative from incomplete and in many ways incoherent information.

Sometime in the next day, days, or weeks, Iowa will declare its winner. But the harsh truth now is that the moment -- one the campaign hoped would be a watershed going forward -- is gone. The planned celebration never came off. The glorious opening shots of Sanders' second bid for a political revolution were corked.

Instead, the campaign is caught between two realities: a strong performance of its own that fell short of expectations and a new, heartening round of evidence that moderates opposed to him appear split and unlikely to coalesce anytime soon.

On Wednesday morning, Sanders spoke with a mix of exasperation -- at the rolling fiasco in Iowa -- and optimism over what, with more than 70% of precincts reporting, showed him poised to finish, at worst, a strong second or tied, or even slightly ahead, in the contest for convention delegates and the winner of both raw vote counts.

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