It has been snowing since Monday morning, and I’ve learned from experience my car can’t handle it. Next time in New Hampshire, rent a Jeep. But I did go to a Bernie Sanders rally at a small college in Nashua yesterday morning. From the perspective of a campaign effectively using its resources, the event wasn’t particularly well conceived.
Barring a dramatic collapse tomorrow, Donald Trump is going to win the New Hampshire primary by a wide margin. He has consistently led the rest of the field there for months by double digits, and his supporters seem committed to him. The race for second place among the Republicans is where things are most uncertain, but before we get to that Trump’s very likely victory tomorrow deserves a few more comments.
A few moments on a New Hampshire debate stage last Saturday will likely go down as an historic moment in American politics. For the previous week there had been a palpable sense that the GOP establishment, desperate to coalesce behind someone to stop Donald Trump, was going to break very quickly towards Marco Rubio. Immediately after Iowa, Rubio began began scooping up endorsements from senators. There were many press reports that key players in Jeb Bush’s financial team were ready to jump—and pull their funds, and their friends, from Jeb’s flailing candidacy to Rubio.
With Iowa in the rearview mirror, New Hampshire dead ahead, and miles and miles of nominating contests to go, the Brookings Institution’s Elaine Kamarck has performed a valuable service by getting into the weeds, describing the mechanics of how America picks its presidential nominees, and explaining how we got here. Primary Politics leads the reader to conclude that process is policy.
Whether he has a real campaign structure or not, Donald Trump is a draw in New Hampshire.