After eking out a narrow victory in Iowa, Hillary Clinton just got beaten soundly—losing New Hampshire to Bernie Sanders by 22 percentage points, the biggest margin in a contested New Hampshire Democratic primary in decades.

Just how much trouble is Clinton in now? She’s still leading national polls, but could this big Sanders win give the socialist senator enough momentum to pose a serious threat? We put this question to top political experts. From “this is now a real campaign” to “big trouble” for Clinton to “about what I expected,” here’s what they said about Tuesday night—and just how much damage it did or didn’t do to the Clinton campaign.


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‘This is now a real campaign’

Robert M. Shrum, professor of the practice of political science at University of Southern California, and a former Democratic strategist, speechwriter and media consultant

Bernie Sanders was right: This was YUGE. And not just the turnout and the margin for him. Hillary Clinton is still the favorite, but for sure this is now a real campaign. Her challenge is to convey a sense of vision that reaches people’s hearts as well as heads, and convinces them in human terms that their lives and hopes will be different if she—and they—win this election. By itself, realism is not a rallying cry. You can’t move and inspire voters by telling them: Don’t reach higher, don’t look over the horizon, settle for less than the change you want. Campaigns are not just for agenda-setting or calls to practicality; they are aspirational.

Clinton can rise to this standard. She was a superb, engaging, motivating candidate in the latter days of her 2008 effort, when she could no longer be nominated. That Clinton needs to re-emerge. And that more than anything else will make her authentic. The answer isn’t internal recrimination; in her campaign, she has some of the most talented folks in American politics. Nor is the answer simply to depend on firewalls or a series of appeals to a collection of constituencies. The demographics are important, but a message with a central theme that informs everything else, that lifts and persuades at a visceral and not simply a one-dimensional rational level, is indispensable.

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‘Um … yes.’

Beth Myers, Republican political consultant and lawyer, and former adviser to Mitt Romney

Um … yes, Hillary Clinton is in big trouble. She survived a squeaker in Iowa, but suffered a shellacking in New Hampshire. Every Democrat under 30 is feeling the Bern. Her dishonesty over her email server has turned into a legal problem that keeps bubbling and bubbling and bubbling. She’s a Wall Street candidate running in an anti-establishment election cycle, delivering a muddled message to an electorate looking for clarity of vision.

Dark clouds remain on the Clinton horizon: The candidate striving to be the first woman U.S. president actually lost women by 11 points in New Hampshire. Her concession speech was gracious but uninspiring, and is unlikely to catapult her forward—she stretched to compare her own “life of service” to the service of police, teachers, firefighters and nurses. Democratic voters still have a hard time trusting her. Bernie Sanders has a lot of work to do to scale up his movement to a national campaign that can secure the Democrat nomination. But things like that have happened before.

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‘Hillary Clinton isn’t in any more or any less trouble’

James Manley, director, Communications Practice, QGA Public Affairs and former communications adviser and spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

After last night, Hillary Clinton isn’t in any more or any less trouble than she was a few days ago. The results were about what I expected. The question now is how she and her team maneuvers from here on out. Politico reported a few days ago that her campaign is considering a shake up. I am ambivalent about whether that is the right way to go or not, in part because the report suggested that instead of firing people, the campaign will just add more layers, which in my mind would be an absolute disaster. I expect her to win Nevada and South Carolina, but clearly Bernie Sanders is not going away anytime soon.

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‘Should she panic? Pshaw!’

Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest

Contrary to what Gloria Steinem says, it turns out it isn’t just the boys who are with Bernie but just about every category of Democratic voter—at least when it comes to New Hampshire. Suddenly Nevada, South Carolina and a welter of other states loom a lot larger for Hillary Clinton. So should she panic? Pshaw! Pundits will rush to proclaim that in New Hampshire she lost her mojo. The truth is she never had it in the first place.

If she wants to win the nomination, not to mention the presidency, Clinton needs to become the Peyton Manning of the Democratic Party. Like Manning, she’s damaged goods, but it doesn’t mean she can’t grind out a victory. Just as the Broncos rode their defense to victory in Super Bowl 50, so Clinton should forget about going on the offensive.

Rather than champion an optimistic message, which Clinton cannot plausibly sell at this point, she should focus on scaring the daylights out of the average Democratic voter about Bernie Sanders as presidential timber. Clinton can begin by pointing out that this Tuesday’s 5-4 Supreme Court move—estopping President Barack Obama’s climate change regulations—is merely a harbinger of things to come if the party abandons her, allowing the GOP to control all three branches of government come November.

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‘Tuesday night’s loss is not defining for the Clinton campaign’

Brent Colburn, fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, former assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs and national communications director for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign

The hardest thing to do when you are in the middle of a campaign is to take a step back and soberly assess the impact of events. Tuesday was a good night for Bernie Sanders and a hard night for the Clinton camp, but the important question is: What truth are these two campaigns waking up to in the morning?

The truth that the Sanders campaign won’t want to face is that Tuesday’s results don’t fundamentally change the dynamic of the Democratic race. We woke up Tuesday morning knowing that Sanders would win in New Hampshire and that the real test will be his ability to replicate that success in more diverse states like South Carolina and Nevada. We went to bed knowing that was still true.

The truth that the Clinton team isn’t going to be really happy about is that they now have to spend the next 11 days answering questions about the health of their campaign when they want to be focused on one singular goal—performing well in the upcoming primaries and starting to drive up their delegate count. The loss in New Hampshire is not defining for the Clinton campaign. How they respond and their ability to stay focused on what matters could be.

The American primary process, as strange and tortured as it can seem, does one thing very well. It publicly tests candidates and lets the American people see the mettle of those who want to be our president. And we are about to learn a lot about both Clinton and Sanders.

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‘It’s still unclear whether Sanders’ momentum is only a flash in the pan’

Ron Bonjean, Republican strategist and a founding partner of the public affairs firm Rokk Solutions

Losing New Hampshire and barely winning Iowa over questionable divided caucus coin tosses is a worst-case scenario for Clinton’s campaign. Bernie Sanders has generated tremendous energy and momentum behind his victory that will make him competitive in other primary states. Clinton lacks a strong, convincing message and is basing her campaign on her experience, while Sanders has made his campaign a left-wing populist movement over changing the system. In addition, Clinton’s poor handling of questions surrounding her e-mail server and the Justice Department investigation has reinforced a thematic of dishonesty among Democratic primary voters. It’s still unclear whether Sanders’ momentum is only a flash in the pan and whether it will overwhelm Clinton’s organization and support in upcoming primary states like Nevada. His campaign will continue to have strong fundraising support, which could take on the Clinton establishment, but he will need to convince African-American and Hispanic voters in upcoming Southern states in order to put the nomination away.

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‘Clinton is in real trouble unless … ’

Douglas Schoen, founding partner and principal strategist for Penn, Schoen and Berland, and a former pollster for Bill Clinton

Hillary Clinton is in real trouble unless she develops a positive, proactive message that does more than tries to imitate and match Bernie Sanders’ populist democratic socialist agenda. The time for bullet points, agenda items and recitation of progressive programs is over. She must offer a vision for where she wants to lead America and what her presidency will be about. Otherwise, she will remain vulnerable and will face a long and difficult fight for the nomination.

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‘A stunning blow’

Spencer Zwick, chair of America Rising PAC

After she led by 56 points a year ago, Hillary Clinton’s defeat is a stunning blow to a sputtering campaign. Unlike in 1992 and 2008, when New Hampshire saved the Clintons’ political careers, the Granite State on Tuesday dealt a devastating setback. With the headlines dominated by an F.B.I. investigation, paid speeches and staff shake-ups, it’s only going to get worse for Clinton. Bernie Sanders has the enthusiasm and momentum on his side, and that spells trouble for Clinton’s future, especially in caucus states dominated by younger voters, among whom Clinton struggles the most.

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‘Clinton has lost the white left of the Democratic Party’

Bill Scher, senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future, co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ” and a contributing editor at Politico Magazine

There’s no question that Hillary Clinton has lost the white left of the Democratic Party to Bernie Sanders. The question that remains is: How far left has the entire party moved, outside of the lily-white states of Iowa and New Hampshire?

The exit polls show that nearly 70 percent of the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic electorates self-identified as “liberal,” a jump of more than 10 points in each state since 2008. In the next caucus state, Nevada, liberals made up only 45 percent of the Democratic pool in 2008. That’s more fertile territory for Clinton, but will that number rise as well? And if so, does it inevitably buoy Bernie? Or can Hillary still make the case for her progressive bona fides to a more racially diverse electorate less familiar with Sanders?

Playing the pragmatist card against Sanders’ idealism hasn’t worked. Clinton needs to be able to sell her record, qualifications and platform without sounding like a “no we can’t” buzzkill. Talking up her deal-making with Republicans doesn’t impress Democrats who see the opposing party as a wall of obstruction.

Her concession speech on Tuesday night was a step in the right direction, laying out her own inspirational vision for the future with a heavy nod toward diversity and equality. She’s on firmer ground when communicating what she is fighting for, rather than what she will settle for.

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A ‘restless’ electorate

Donna Brazile, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee

After two states with minimal (I’m being generous) demographics, this shows that the activist wing and the emerging electorate are restless.

