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New Hampshire primary won by Trump and Sanders – as it happened

This article is more than 8 years old
 Updated 
in Concord, New Hampshire
Wed 10 Feb 2016 00.19 ESTFirst published on Tue 9 Feb 2016 18.16 EST
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Live results: New Hampshire

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Summary

The topline results are in in the New Hampshire primary. Here’s what we know so far:

  • The 2016 presidential race broke into an open and clear insurgency in both parties against the political establishment, with formerly outsider candidates scoring huge victories in the New Hampshire primary.
  • Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders won by large double-digit margins. Their respective wins were big enough that TV networks were able to call the races immediately after polls closed.
  • Voter turnout in New Hampshire on a bitterly cold night was very large and appeared to be on track to break state records.
  • Ohio governor John Kasich won his bet on the Granite State, finishing in second. He vowed to take his campaign national after a New Hampshire focus.
  • The fight over third place on the Republican side was too close to call. Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all appeared to be in the running.
  • The stakes were high, as a fourth or fifth place finish in New Hampshire would make it more difficult for Bush or others to justify carrying on. “This campaign is not dead,” Bush told supporters.
  • Governor Chris Christie announced he was returning to New Jersey to “take a deep breath” after what looked like a sixth-place finish in a state where he went for broke.
  • Democratic runner-up Hillary Clinton said “I know I have some work to do, particularly with young people,” but she vowed to “fight for every vote in every state.”
  • Sanders asked viewers to donate on his web site “to take the fight to Nevada, South Carolina and the states on Super Tuesday.”
  • Sanders said his big New Hampshire victory would “echo from Wall Street to Washington, from Maine to California,” and announced a political revolution.
  • “We are going now to South Carolina, we’re gonna win in South Carolina,” Trump concluded his speech. “I love you all.”
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Meanwhile ... In a just-released interview with French conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles, Trump has accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of making “a tragic mistake” in allowing migrants into Germany.

In the real estate billionaire’s first in-depth campaign interview with European media, he warned that the refugee crisis could trigger revolutions and even the end of Europe.

German Chancellor Merkel. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

“If you don’t treat the situation competently and firmly, yes, it’s the end of Europe. You could face real revolutions,” Trump was quoted as saying.

The 69-year-old property magnate also said Brussels had become a breeding ground for terrorists and some neighbourhoods in Paris and elsewhere in France had become no-go zones. “Unfortunately, France is not what it used to be, and neither is Paris,” he said.

He also said tight French gun laws were partly responsible for the killing of dozens of people at the Bataclan concert hall last November by Islamist militants.

“I always have a gun with me. Had I been at the Bataclan, I can tell you I would have opened fire,” he said.

(h/t: Reuters)

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Sabrina Siddiqui
Sabrina Siddiqui

When Marco Rubio took the stage before supporters after an underwhelming performance in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, the Florida senator was brutally honest: It was his own fault.

Rubio had stumbled badly in the last Republican presidential debate, offering a robotic performance in a critical exchange with New Jersey governor Chris Christie just two days before voters took to the polls. And despite Rubio and his team’s best efforts to brush the moment aside, the senator acknowledged as the results rolled in that it mattered.

“It’s on me.” Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

“A lot of people are disappointed. I’m disappointed with tonight,” Rubio told a couple hundred supporters in a hotel ballroom. “But I want to tell you that disappointment is not on you. It’s on me. It’s on me.”

“I did not do well on Saturday night. So listen to this: That will never happen again.”

The crowd of voters and volunteers erupted at first in disagreement, seeking to cheer him on despite his lackluster showing. But they quickly broke into thunderous applause as he switched gears to a more optismistic outlook of the future.

“Tonight we did not wind up where we wanted to be, but that does not change where we are going to wind up at the end of this process,” Rubio said.

“Not all days are going to be great days,” he added. “We’re not always going to get things the way we want, but in the end I’m confident that not only will this campaign be successful, but America will be successful as well.”

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A note on how delegates are awarded in New Hampshire

Every state party has its own rules for awarding delegates, representatives at the national party conventions, to candidates.

Some states are winner-take-all. Others are proportionate based on share of statewide vote. Others are proportionate based on congressional district. The parties keep separate sets of rules for this, of course.

Many states require a candidate to get above a certain percentage of the vote to win any delegates at all. The Republican race in New Hampshire is like that!

In New Hampshire on the Republican side you need to get 10% of the vote to come away with any delegates at all.

Candidates currently with less than 10% of the vote in New Hampshire, with 73.33% reporting: Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson. If they don’t clear 10% they forfeit their percentages – to whoever wins. In this case Donald Trump.

So, ironically, a vote for Christie tonight could end up being, in effect, a vote for Trump.

Marco Rubio is just over the hurdle, for now, at 10.5%.

Lee Glendinning
Lee Glendinning

Here’s video from inside the room earlier with Hillary Clinton, who kicked off the series of candidates’ speeches, victory and vanquished.

She thanks the crowd for “the passion and purpose you all show for this campaign” – and you can hear it in the din:

Cheerful support for Clinton.

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino adds this from the room:

The theme of the night at Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire primary party was best summed up by the Taylor Swift song that plays on loop at every event: Shake it off.

“I know I have some work to do,” Clinton said. The former President Bill Clinton and daughter, Chelsea Clinton stood by her side as she spoke.

Clinton congratulated her rival Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and said to his supporters: “Even if they are not supporting me now, I support them.”

Several voters said they expected the result and were not surprised to see Sanders win in New Hampshire.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and I think she’s going to deliver in the end, I really do,” said Dawn Harkness of New London, Connecticut.

Matt Sullivan
Matt Sullivan

The Guardian’s Matt Sullivan reports from inside the Kasich event on what he just heard – and draws a contest with a certain other victorious Republican tonight:

John Kasich, speaking to an increasingly packed banquet hall across town from Sanders moments after Trump stole the top of TV’s 10pm hour, was humble.
He was, after all, still the man of the hour.

“I want to congratulate Donald Trump,” he said to boos. “No, no - he won fair and square.”

He chastised winning “by being extreme” and talked of overcoming “the darkness”. He said people were able to come to his town halls “and feel safe”. (At Trump’s rallies, a voice on the loudspeaker reads boilerplate on how to get protesters escorted out instead of beaten up.)

Kasich with wife Karen. Photograph: Jim Cole/AP

Kasich played the role of a calm underdog suddenly taking on the big attack dog, with a proposition seeking to re-introduce himself on prime time: “The media kept saying, Can you do this? Can you finish high?”

He had.

“There’s something going on,” Kasich said. “There’s magic in the air with this campaign.”

The Ohio governor, who had more events in more places than any candidate in this state, was sure of it: “Something big happened tonight.”

He complained of “tens of millions spent against us” in negative advertising but, once again, played the anti-Trump: “We never went negative because we have more good to sell,” he said.

He talked about the heart, not the head. He talked about giving hugs.

“Maybe – just maybe – we are turning the page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness.”

It was a veiled shot at Trump - an optimistic one, but it drew the biggest cheer of the night. Except for the hugs part. And the joke about how “Bernie talks so long” and how “it ain’t working here” for Clinton. And the time the announcers said on Fox News here that Trump had won, because second place was good enough in New Hampshire.

There were no stickers. The hats didn’t say MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN; they had the logos of teams from Ohio and Detroit.

“We have some real talent in the Republican Party,” Trump had said to the cameras.
This, apparently was it.

“There’s so much gonna happen, if you don’t have a seatbelt,” Kasich said of the road ahead, “go get one!”

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Christie to head back to New Jersey

Governor Chris Christie has announced, after staking his candidacy on a strong showing in New Hampshire with more than 190 events here, that he is not heading to South Carolina, scene of the next Republican primary – but home to the Garden State:

We’ve decided that we’re going to go home to New Jersey tomorrow and we’re going to take a deep breath.”

BREAKING: Christie heading home to New Jersey to 'take a deep breath,' take stock of presidential bid.

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 10, 2016
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Rubio: 'I did not do well on Saturday night'

Guardian political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui live-tweeted Marco Rubio’s speech moments ago, in which the Florida senator expressed regret for a robotic performance at the last Republican debate:

Rubio says he called Trump to congratulate him. Some in crowd boo. “No no, he worked very hard,” Rubio says.

Rubio: “Our disappointment tonight is not on you. It’s on me.”

WOW. Rubio tells crowd: "I did not do well on Saturday night … and that will never happen again."

— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 10, 2016

Rubio: “Tonight we did not wind up where we wanted to be, but that does not change where we are going to wind up at the end of this process”

Rubio: “I am confident that when this process is done, this nation will rediscover and re-embrace the principles that made her great.”

Bush: 'This campaign is not dead'

Paul Owen
Paul Owen

Jeb Bush speech following New Hampshire primary results. #NHPrimary https://t.co/iQi1PGKT9a

— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) February 10, 2016

Jeb Bush, who appears to have had a stronger showing than expected today, just gave his post-results speech.

He was introduced by South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who dropped out of the presidential race and backed Bush in December. “Bush is back because of New Hampshire,” he said. “South Carolina here we come!” he said, referring to the next primary.

“The pundits had it all figured out, last Monday night, when the Iowa caucuses were complete. They said that the race was now a three-person race between two freshman senators and a reality TV star. And, while the reality TV star is still doing well, it looks like you all have reset the race, and for that I am really grateful.”

He added: “This campaign is not dead. We’re going to South Carolina.”

Lauding his own record as governor of Florida, Bush said: “Government should not grow faster than our ability to pay for it, and under a Bush administration it will not do.

“I will be a conservative candidate who embraces conservative values and I will do it just as I did as governor of the state of Florida: pro-life, pro-second amendment, embracing strong, wholesome family life.

“We also need someone who can defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall,” he said, to chants of “Jeb! Jeb! Jeb!” “Not just Hillary Clinton, but apparently Bernie Sanders as well,” he added to laughter.

The scene before the speech was not quite as lively:

Uptown Funk at Jeb Bush party. This place is jumping! #nhprimary https://t.co/yEwGIF3gKw

— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) February 10, 2016
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We’re rounding up speeches by Cruz and Rubio. Cruz says he finished “far better than anyone expected” in New Hampshire.

Then Cruz looks at upcoming contests and licks his chops. “Washington liberals may find South Carolina far less hospitable environs,” he says, in a certain allusion to Kasich. After that, on 1 March, a slew of southern states vote, in the so-called SEC primary, named for the football conference.

Kasich implies he’s getting the cane, as in it’s time to get offstage. He says the Democrats over-talked.

“Bernie talked so long I thought he was going to hit his 77th birthday!” says Kasich. “Hillary– you just need to say a little bit because it ain’t workin’ here. It’s not working here! And it’s not gonna work because I’m coming back in November.”

Applause.

Sanders says he’s headed for South Carolina, and Nevada, and then he alludes to the fact that on 15 March, the presidential contest will arrive in Ohio, a winner-take-all state, delegate-wise.

We’ll end up in the Midwest, and you just wait, let me tell you, there’s so much gonna happen, if you don’t have a seatbelt, go get one.

Applause and he’s out.

Kasich: 'I'm going to go slower'

Kasich says he’ll wake up every single day to make sure every American has a job in the United States of America.

“We’re gonna solve the problems of America, not by being extreme, not by reminding everyone that first we’re Republican or a Democrat” but by inviting every American in, he says.

Kasich says “the wonderful people of New Hampshire have changed me... as we got closer and closer to those 100 town halls... people for some reason were able to come to these town halls and feel safe.”

Kasich tells the story of a man who cried in his arms, saying his son had cancer and he felt he had failed to warn him.

Kasich told the man it wasn’t his fault. The man later contacted his campaign to say a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He describes other wrenching scenes from those town halls.

“When you are in settings like that, you begin to learn something. There are too many people in America that don’t feel connected. They have victories and nobody to celebrate it with them.. losses with no one to share.”

Kasich says what the country needs is jobs, but more than that, the country needs a return - it sounds like a return – “to the America that I know. Where we all slow down our lives. Because we’re all made to change the world... if we would just slow down” and be nice to one another.

“When you’re in such a hurry to leave the driveway or leave the shopping center...[hug that person instead.]

“You see it doesn’t take government. It takes our hearts. Our hearts to change America... I’ve become more convinced about what it takes to be a political leader.

“From this day forward I’m going to go slower, and spend my time listening, and healing, and helping, and bringing people together.”

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Kasich gets a Kasich! Kasich! cheer.

“Something big happened tonight, and let me tell you what it is.” He says that despite millions spent against them in negative ads, “we never went negative.”

The crowd cheers.

“Maybe, just maybe, we are turning the page on a dark part of American politics,” he says, as Trump firms up his 35% victory.

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