The New Hampshire Primary results are in, and the winners are Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, who together won 44 percent of the vote, compared to Bernie Sanders winning 25.7 percent, only about 3,700 votes ahead of Buttigieg, who had 24.4 percent of the vote on his own.
Even if you add Elizabeth Warren’s poor showing, 9.2 percent of the vote to Sanders’ total, the moderates clearly won, even not including Joe Biden’s embarrassing 5th place finish, with 8.4 percent of the vote.
It is clear that both Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren are in free fall, and if they do not do well in Nevada and South Carolina, and on Super Tuesday on March 3, they are done as candidates, and it is likely down to Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and the likelihood that Michael Bloomberg may do well on Super Tuesday, after spending about $300 million on advertising so far.
Tom Steyer, Deval Patrick, and Tulsi Gabbard remain technically in the race, which is down to just nine candidates, after Andrew Yang and Michael Bennet withdrew last night.
No one thought that Buttigieg and Klobuchar would get this far as survivors, and the sense is that one or the other, or both as a team, might very well be the Democratic ticket for 2020, two Midwestern candidates, who could, in theory, accomplish what Hillary Clinton could not do in 2016, win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and potentially, even Ohio and Iowa, enough to win the White House!