Decision day in New Hampshire
Story highlights
- Polls across most of New Hampshire opened at 8 a.m. ET
- Outsider candidates favored in Granite State
(CNN)New
Hampshire voters will make their choice for president in the
first-in-the-nation primary contest that public opinion polls suggest
could deliver victory to a pair of outsider candidates, Republican
Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders.
Voting booths opened across most of the Granite state at 8 a.m. ET, though a trickle of voters made it to the polls in
the traditional curtain raiser of Dixville Notch not far from the
Canadian border just after midnight. In that snow-bound hamlet, Ohio
Gov. John Kasich bested Trump 3-2 among Republicans, while Sanders
claimed all four votes among Democrats.
Tuesday's
primary follows last week's Iowa caucuses where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had
a clear win and Democrat Hillary Clinton barely edged out Sanders. A
cluster of big questions could be answered once the results roll in
later Tuesday after a week of frenzied campaigning.
Trump
is in for a nervous day as he waits to see whether he can turn support
at huge rallies into votes after falling short of his polling numbers in
Iowa last week.
Rubio's stumble
Marco
Rubio's stumble under New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's ferocious fire
at Saturday's GOP debate, meanwhile, threatens to stall his momentum
heading into New Hampshire, where the Florida senator looked likely to
emerge as the top establishment candidate.
As
he left a polling station in Derry, New Hampshire, Tuesday, Rubio
dismissed concerns about his debate performance as a "media thing."
"Voters
in New Hampshire are serious about, they understand what's at stake
here," Rubio told CNN's Dana Bash. "The future of America is at stake."
For
their part, Democrats are waiting to assess the magnitude of Sanders'
expected victory over Clinton, which could offer the anti-Wall Street
crusader a boost heading into less hospitable territory in southern
states.
Campaigning for the primary
drew to a close Monday with Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
trading deeply personal taunts and Rubio trying to bounce back from his
tough debate night.
The latest CNN/WMUR daily tracking poll on
Monday showed Sanders with a 26-point lead over Clinton. On the
Republican side, Trump maintained the lead he has held for months, 31%
to next-best Florida Sen. Rubio with 17%. Three-quarters of the polling
was completed before Saturday's debate, so it was unclear whether Rubio
had been hurt by his rocky performance.
Among
other candidates, Cruz was third with 14%, ahead of Ohio Gov. John
Kasich at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 7%. Christie received
4%, according to CNN's tracking poll.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.2 percentage
points. The high number of undecided voters could make this a very fluid
race.
Despite his lowly position in the polls, Christie has spent the past few days basking in his debate assault on Rubio.
Under
pressure from the New Jersey brawler, Rubio repeated the same line four
times during the debate, exacerbating criticisms that he is overly
scripted.
"When the lights get that
bright, you either shine or you melt, and we can't afford to have a
president who melts," Christie said Monday at a campaign event in
Hudson, New Hampshire.
Christie, Bush
and Kasich are hoping that Rubio's rough night halts momentum he built
up coming third in Iowa. A strong second place in the Granite State
would enhance Rubio's case that he is best-positioned to consolidate
opposition to Trump and Cruz.
Crucial moment for Trump
Trump, for his part, hinted Sunday that he understands how crucial New Hampshire is to his campaign.
"I
could say to you if I came in second and third I'd be thrilled, okay? I
know all about expectations," Trump told Bash on Sunday. "If I came in
second I wouldn't be happy, okay?"
Bush,
who for once equaled or even got the better of Trump on the debate
stage on Saturday, has been mounting a last stand in New Hampshire and
on Monday lashed out at the former reality TV star on Twitter.
"You
aren't just a loser, you are a liar and a whiner," Bush wrote in an
apparent reference to Trump's claims of irregularities in the Iowa
caucus results.
Trump had a scathing
response in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "He's a stiff. He's
not a guy that can be president. He doesn't have what it takes."
He
continued: "He's a desperate person. He's a sad and, you know, he's a
pathetic person. He doesn't even use his last name in his ads. He's a
sad person who has gone absolutely crazy. He's a nervous wreck."
The
Democratic race between Clinton and Sanders also got testy, with a
clash over the former New York senator's ties to Wall Street and her
campaign's attacks on his foreign policy.
On
Sunday, Bill Clinton slammed the Vermont senator's supporters who he
said subjected opponents to "vicious trolling and attacks that are
literally too profane often -- not to mention sexist -- to repeat."
Only
hours from the primary, new clouds gathered around the Clinton campaign
following a Politico report that the candidate and her husband were
disappointed with the direction of her campaign and that a staff shakeup
could be in the offing.
But Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta dismissed the report.
"There is zero truth to what you may be reading. It's wrong. Hillary stands behind her team, period," he wrote on Twitter.
Clinton, after a campaign stop
in Manchester, responded to the reports of a campaign shakeup in an
interview on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" Monday, acknowledging her
campaign will "take stock" of their operation.
"I
have no idea what they're talking about or who they are talking to,"
Clinton said of the Politico report. "We're going to take stock, but
it's going to be the campaign that I've got. I'm very confident in the
people that I have. I'm very committed to them, they're committed to
doing the best we can."
David Axelrod, a
CNN senior political commentator and former top adviser to President
Barack Obama, suggested that the blame lies at the top.
"When
the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different
staff, at what point do the principals say, 'Hey, maybe it's US?'"
Axelrod tweeted.
end quote from:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/new-hampshire-primary-highlights/index.html
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