Democratic presidential candidates brought a new dynamic to the debate stage Friday night. Contrasts between them sharpened following the messy Iowa caucuses. Here are the highlights from NewHampshire:
Race was at the center of a heated debate in the second hour — from drug arrests in Pete Buttigieg’s South Bend, to a Biden supporter accused of racistcomments
Mike Bloomberg wasn’t on stage, but he was on other candidates’minds
Voting in the primaries began on Monday with an Iowa caucus that experienced severe delays.
Tuesday featured President Trump’s State of the Union Address. Wednesday marked an historic Senate acquittal of Trump in his impeachment trial. On Thursday the president gave a post-acquittal “victory” speech and on Friday, the eighth Democratic presidential debate concluded in NewHampshire.
The seven candidates discussed a range of policy issues, which spanned from the cost of health care to widespread substance addiction to gun policy to the prospect for increased rights for black and brownAmericans.
The candidates convened just four days before the New Hampshire primary — a contest that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won in 2016 by 22% of the vote. This year Sanders also is considered a favorite in New Hampshire but he enters the race with three competitors who’ve trailed him closely inpolls.
For more analysis and takeaways from tonight’s debate, be sure to subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast for a full post debaterecap.
Ready for another Democratic presidential debate? In under two weeks, the candidates are set to travel to Nevada for the ninth debate of the 2020primary.
In order to qualify for the Feb. 19 debate, the Democratic National Committee says candidates need to either surpass a polling threshold or a delegatethreshold.
For the polling threshold, candidates must score at least 10% in four different national or state polls. They can also achieve this by scoring over 12% in two state polls specifically from South Carolina and/orNevada.
Alternatively, the DNC says that candidates can qualify by obtaining at least one pledged delegate in either of the first two presidential contests in Iowa or NewHampshire.
Five candidates have qualified so far for the nextdebate:
Trump Campaign Slams Dems Over Their Answers On‘Socialism’
It isn’t clear yet how many New Hampshire voters watched tonight’s debate ahead of their primary, or how many Americans did more broadly, but President Trump’s campaign officials definitely tunedin.
Communications director Tim Murtaugh slammed the Democrats along some of the very lines that were the subject of discussion, including about the term“socialism.”
“Democrats were given multiple opportunities tonight to denounce socialism and none of them did,” hesaid.
Murtaugh also contrasted Trump’s decision to kill the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, with the varied answers given by the candidates when they were asked about it. Trump is eager to run against any of the Democrats, Murtaughsaid.
“As a major political party they are hopelessly out of touch with the majority of Americans. By contrast, President Trump has reinvigorated the American Dream, brought unemployment to generational lows, increased paychecks for low- and middle-income Americans, and lowered healthcare and prescription drug costs for people nationwide. President Trump will crush whichever Democrat is unlucky enough to face him inNovember.”
The Candidates Discuss Child Poverty, A Topic Last Raised By Cokie Roberts 20 YearsAgo
The moderators closed the debate by highlighting a topic — child poverty — that hasn’t been referenced in a presidential debate since Cokie Roberts of ABC News asked candidates about it in a 1999 Republican presidentialdebate.
Roberts died in September of 2019. In addition to shaping television news at ABC, Roberts was also a “founding mother” of National Public Radio, helping make the news organization what it is today with her decades ofreporting.
NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg, another “founding mother” of NPR, honored her friend and colleague here.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders defended his opposition to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Sanders was one of just 10 senators to vote against the trade pact, which updates the old North American Free Trade Agreement, before it was signed by thepresident.
Sanders said the new agreement does nothing to halt the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico, and criticized its omitting of climate change. That’s why he opposed it, hesaid.
The other two senators on the stage, Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, both voted in favor of the tradedeal.
Klobuchar said the USMCA makes some “major improvements,” including on labor protections, while Warren said the deal makes things “somewhat better” for workers andfarmers.
Both Klobuchar and Warren said they’d aim to negotiate separate climate pacts aspresident.
The Candidates Debate Bloomberg As He Ramps UpStaff
Businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t on stage tonight but he was nonetheless present — criticized by the candidates for his massivespending.
Bloomberg announced his candidacy in late November and adopted the unconventional strategy of skipping the early primary and caucus states, instead focusing on the upcoming Super Tuesday contests scheduled for March3.
In less than three months, Bloomberg has already spent $314 million on advertising. Those numbers far surpass any other candidate running, including billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, who had spent $145 million as of Jan. 31 — and is onstagetonight.
Bloomberg has also reportedly increased his number of staff around the country to more than2,000.
After two hours of debating, former Vice President Joe Biden has now taken the most speaking time. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang is far behind the othercandidates.
Billionaire activist Tom Steyer has been among the candidates working most aggressively to narrow former Vice President Joe Biden’s lead among South Carolina’s black voters ahead of the Feb. 29 primary. Black voters make up just under two-thirds of South Carolina’s Democraticvoters.
During tonight’s debate, Steyer demanded that Biden disavow South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian for remarks that they say were racially motivated. The Associated Press reports that members of the Legislative Black Caucus say the remarks “insinuated that their group’s chairman had been bought by Biden rival Tom Steyer because he was paid for his work for Steyer’scampaign.”
The remarks in question were in a tweet from Harpootlian, questioning why Black Caucus Chairman Jerry Govan was paid more than $43,000 by Steyer’s campaign, calling Steyer “Mr. MoneyBags.”
"Is he pocketing the dough or redistributing the wealth?" Harpootlian asked, referring toGovan.
According to The Associated Press, Harpootlian denies that his comments were raciallymotivated.
The fight between Steyer and Biden comes with about three weeks to go before South Carolina’s primary, the first Southern primary and the first state in which black voters feature prominently. In South Carolina and nationally, black voters have overwhelmingly supported Biden. But some recent polling in South Carolina has shown Steyer on therise.
Filibuster And ‘Packing The Court’ Get TheSpotlight
Should Democratic senators, if they regain the Senate, get rid of the legislative filibuster? What about expanding the Supreme Court beyond the nine currentjustices?
Those two structural governance issues have just been raised in thedebate.
When discussing gun control efforts, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren brought up her willingness to scrap the legislative filibuster, especially on an issue like universal background checks, which polls show has the support of a clear majority of Americans. The filibuster creates a hurdle in the Senate that makes it more difficult to passlegislation.
Warren is one of three Democratic candidates on the record backing the end of the filibuster, along with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and billionaire activist TomSteyer.
Buttigieg was then asked about expanding the Supreme Court. He’s called for increasing the number of justices to 15, with five of those being “apolitical justices picked by the first 10.” Today the Supreme Court has nine members but the Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices it mayinclude.
Warren, Steyer and entrepreneur Andrew Yang have also expressed support for increasing the size of thecourt.
When the Supreme Court question came to former Vice President Joe Biden, he said expansion is a bad idea. Biden called it a rare area on which he disagreed with the man he called his idol, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sought more Supreme Court justices to create a friendlier audience for parts of his New Deal. Biden also said he agrees with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who told NPR last year that “nine seems to be a goodnumber.”
Biden Ended First Presidential Campaign, Turned To Fight BorkNomination
In discussing abortion, former Vice President Joe Biden cited his successful fight on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defeat the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, a choice by President RonaldReagan.
As NPR’s Tamara Keith hasreported:
“In late 1987, Joe Biden was in the midst of two high-stakes battles: one for the Democratic presidential nomination, and another, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to try to stop President Reagan’s nominee to the Supreme Court, RobertBork.
“His fight for the presidential nomination would end abruptly, dealing Biden his biggest political setback up until that point. But Biden was successful in the other battle, as he thwarted Bork’s nomination to the highcourt.”
Biden’s first White House bid had been beset by an infamous plagiarism scandal when he dropped out. You can read more about this turning point in Biden’scareer.
Almost an hour and a half into the debate, the candidates addressed gun violence and gunpolicy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders defended his record on gun policy — touting his now “D minus” rating from the National Rifle Association. He earned that despite voting against background checks and waiting periods for firearms as a congressman in the1990s.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has criticized Sanders for his earlier views on gun policy. In the 2016 primary, Hillary Clinton also made this point againstSanders.
Check out NPR’s issue tracker on gun policy to see where each candidate stands on assault weapons bans, red-flag laws and universal backgroundchecks.
The candidates who came out on top in Iowa and led recent polls in New Hampshire also spoke the most in the first hour of tonight’s debate. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg had the most talk time and were trailed closely by former Vice President JoeBiden.
See how much time all of the candidates have gotten to speak sofar:
The candidates addressed climate change. You can hear more about where they stand on this episode of the NPR science podcast Short Wave, featuring our own ScottDetrow.
And here’s our candidate tracker on where the Democrats stand on the Green New Deal and other climateissues.
Presented with Hillary Clinton’s past sharp criticism of him, Sen. Bernie Sanders has a message for America: Let’s move on. In a recently released documentary, Clinton said that “nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothingdone.”
Amy Klobuchar, Sanders’ Senate colleague, was asked if that assessment was accurate. “I like Bernie just fine,” she said, the second time she’d pointed out that she and Sanders had worked welltogether.
Some time later, Sanders urged Americans to look forward and overcome the old hostilities of the 2016 campaign and instead unite around the mission of defeating PresidentTrump.
Sanders said that given the crises facing America, “our job is to look forward and not back, despite 2016.” He said he hopes Clinton and others can come together and dothat.
A Fine Line Between Warren And Biden OnAfghanistan
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren sounds very much like President Trump in talking about the war in Afghanistan. Warren described the war as an eternal quagmire and seemed to support cutting bait and attempting to move on. Trump has said, in so many words, that he feels the same way, but his administration has struggled to get traction in peace negotiations with the insurgentTaliban.
Former Vice President Joe Biden also said he was frustrated and exhausted with the conflict, but he reflected much more of a Washington consensus view: The risks are too great, he says, for America to withdraw completely from Afghanistan. That would lead to collapse and the risks that terrorists could again use it as an ungoverned space to launch attacks against America or theWest.
There are about 12,000 American troops in Afghanistan and unless Trump’s slow-moving negotiations with the Taliban achieve a major breakthrough between now and Election Day, it’s likely that either Trump or whichever Democrat is elected will still need to deal with the Afghanistan dilemma in the next presidentialterm.
Tom Steyer pleaded with Democratic voters: "We gotta win or we are in deep trouble,” he said, noting that everyone on stage was “right” about the kinds of policies they wanted to implement and the direction they want to take thecountry.
Politically, he’s right. Democrats have been arguing — honestly, on the margins — about their policies, but these priorities are meaningless if Democrats aren’t in power to implementthem.
Some Democrats, especially this year, sometimes seem to give a lot of weight to perfection (health care), and many of them seem to want to fight with one or two hands tied behind their backs (how to raise and use money as a litmustest).
Republicans, on the other hand, are in lockstep behind President Trump. It’s not because all Republicans love or agree with him privately. Plenty of Republicans in Washington worked against this president during thecampaign.
But they want to win, and are demonstrating they will do anything to retain that power. If Democrats want to win back the White House, they’d better be acutely aware ofthat.
The Democrats tried to differentiate themselves from President Trump on national security by lambasting his style of governance and, in some cases, vowing they wouldn’t have ordered the death of Iran’s Quds Force commander QassemSoleimani.
Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg sidestepped a direct answer as to whether he might have authorized the drone strike. What he said the United States needs is a clearer plan and a president who’s engaged with the substance of national security policy and geopolitics — which Buttigieg said Trumpisn’t.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were more categorical: No, they said, they wouldn’t have ordered the strike on Soleimani. But apart from both delivering a criticism of Trump’s decision-making and, in Sanders’ case, what he called the foolish pursuit of rapprochement with North Korea, neither Democrat outlined a clear alternate path for the MiddleEast.
One question that will confront any Democrat, if one were elected president, is how different the Middle East may be by the time he or she is inaugurated in January of 2021. The vague consensus among the candidates about trying to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal, for example, may not meet with a reality on the ground in the region or in Iran that would make that as simple as just switching the agreement backon.
Steyer: We’ve Got To Take Trump Down On TheEconomy
Billionaire activist Tom Steyer pivoted from the topic of impeachment to the issue of theeconomy.
“[President Trump’s] economy isn’t delivering for working people,” Steyer said. “The jobs don’t pay enough for people to live on. We’ve got to take him down on theeconomy.”
It’s a tricky issue for Democrats, as America is well into a multi-year economic expansion, the U.S. unemployment rate is near a 50-year low, and Trump’s best public approval numbers are on his economic stewardship. Just today, in fact, the federal government said that U.S. employers last month added more jobs than forecasters expected, especially this late into therecovery.
The strong indicators have left Democrats to focus on other aspects of the economy, including widening income and wealth inequality and how the compensation of many jobs has lagged certain costs, including for health care, housing andeducation.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has often used these Democratic debates to go after Pete Buttigieg — and she did againtonight.
She criticized the former South Bend, Ind., mayor for saying that he found the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump to be “exhausting” and that he’d rather be watchingcartoons.
“It is easy to go after Washington, because that’s a popular thing to do,” Klobuchar said. “It is much harder to lead and take those difficultpositions.”
She also referenced Trump, saying that having a newcomer in office is not necessarily a goodthing.
Here’s what Buttigieg actually said on the Iowa trail: “I live and breathe politics and I’m exhausted.” He almost wants to “switch it off and just watch cartoons or something,” hesaid.
In response to Klobuchar’s jab on the debate stage, Buttigieg indicated that his exhaustion was a reflection of the exhaustion he sees around the country. Part of his campaign pitch — as a 38-year-old candidate — is to speak of a promising future and a new wayforward.
Democrats Divided Over How To Move Ahead AfterImpeachment
President Trump doesn’t only divide the Democrats over how they might reverse his policies. He also divides them as to how they’d deal with his specificcase.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she’d explore empowering an independent commission within the U.S. Justice Department that could investigate crimes in the government, and specifically, a prosecution ofTrump.
“We need to establish the rule of law in thiscountry.”
Trump has endured a number of allegations that, for another person, might have brought criminal charges. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report raised the prospect that Trump might have broken the law by obstructing justice. Former aides of Trump have alleged that his business practices might have violated the law. But the Justice Department has opined that a president cannot beindicted.
Democrats’ attempt to impeach Trump in connection with what they called other wrongdoing, in the Ukraine affair, was stopped by Republicans in the Senate. So Warren and the other candidates were asked tonight and before tonight about how they might resolve the Trump matter if they wound up in the White House when he becomes a private citizen again — and potentially susceptible toprosecution.
Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang urged Democrats to try to move on. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn’t as specific as Warren but blasted Trump for what he called his abuse of power and contempt for theConstitution.
About all that’s clear is that the fate of Trump is a live question for these Democrats and may remain so through the election, raising the stakes both for the challengers and the incumbent and his supporters, who might have an even greater incentive for Trump to keep the White House given these prospective legalperils.
Earlier today, National Security Council Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was “escorted” out of the White House, two days after President Trump was acquitted in the Senate impeachmenttrial.
Vindman testified in the House impeachment hearings back in November and described his concerns about Trump’s July phone conversation with Ukraine’spresident.
Following his departure, Democratic candidates are praising him on the debatestage.
“He should be pinning a medal on Vindman and not Rush Limbaugh,” said former Vice President Joe Biden. He urged the crowd to rise to its feet to applaud the Ukraine-born career Armyofficer.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also praised Vindman and also spotlighted the votes of Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, two senators who faced heavy political pressure to acquit Trump, but instead publicly spoke out against him and voted for hisremoval.
Politics is a strange business. Democrats pilloried Mitt Romney in 2012 when he was the Republican Party’s nominee for president. They derided him for ruling out much of the electorate when he said “47%” of people would never support him because they were “dependent on government assistance.” They mocked him when he said the biggest geopolitical threat to the United States in the 21st century would be Russia. Tonight, a Democratic candidate for president hailed Romney for what she called hiscourage.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she and the other active members of Congress onstage have been doing serious work in Washington while, she said, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg scoffed and said he was ready to change the channel. And she praised the relevance of the impeachment proceedings and what she called the bravery of those who testified — and of Romney, who was the only Republican to vote with Democrats to convict Trump on one article ofimpeachment.
There’s a real sense of urgency that’s broken out on the Democratic debate stage, more so than for any past debate yet. The candidates, for the first time, are intent on drawing bold lines between not just their policies but their politicalarguments.
Biden struck an aggressive tone, saying Sanders has used the “democratic socialist” label, something Trump would use against him and other Democrats. And he went after Buttigieg saying he’s a “risk” as a mayor of a “small city” and hasn’t proven he can win black and Latinovoters.
Buttigieg said he’s “not interested in labels,” but in the type of politics that can win, and also govern. Then he said the biggest risk is to put someone up that would be “falling back on the familiar” (Biden) or a candidate who would be “dividing people” and that if you don’t go “all the way to the edge” it doesn’tcount.
"Are you talking about Sen. Sanders?" moderator George Stephanopoulosasked.
"Yes," Buttigieg saidaffirmatively.
Even Sen. Amy Klobuchar got in on the act, hitting Sanders on Medicare for All, noting that what he wants to do is “not real” because two-thirds of Democrats “are not on board with your bill.” And going after Buttigieg for wanting to “watch cartoons” rather than watch the impeachmenthearings.
Clearly, Klobuchar and Buttigieg see an opening against Biden. After Iowa, many Democratic strategists wondered if there would be a Biden implosion. There’s definitely a crack in the door, and Buttigieg and Klobuchar are trying to push it wideopen.
A Democratic Debate Revolves Around Health CareAgain
The candidates found their way to health care again. It’s been the No. 1 topic for Democratic voters — and the No. 1 topic in these many Democraticdebates.
Again, it exposed a relative-progressive-vs.-more-moderate divide, with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s support for Medicare for All on one side, and other candidates’ backing of a “public option” on theother.
Check out our detailed rundown of where the Democratic candidates — those on stage and those not on stage — stand on the issue of healthcare.
When moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Sanders how he planned to respond to President Trump’s criticisms of him as a democratic socialist, Stephanopoulos referenced that Sanders had spent his “honeymoon” in Moscow. Sanders dismissed the claims, saying that the president waslying.
According to The Washington Post, Sanders did travel to Moscow after he first married Jane O’Meara in 1988. The two spent 10 days in the former Soviet Union and Sanders called the visit, “a very strangehoneymoon.”
President Trump and Republicans are likely to link any Democratic nominee to socialism, but former Vice President Joe Biden, seeking to draw distinctions with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, reiterated a recent talking point: that Sanders’ self-avowed “democratic socialism” hurts the senator’s electability case and also makes it harder for Democrats to win down theticket.
Moderator George Stephanopoulos then asked if anyone was opposed to a democratic socialist being the party’s nominee. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar jumped in — but rather than using the opportunity to attack Sanders, she cited her own electability case: what she called the ability to pull in support from independents and Republicans, and winning big in purple-ishMinnesota.
The entire exchange illustrates Democrats’ key focus — and point of anxiety: Which candidate would be the best to take onTrump?
Tom Steyer, the billionaire investor and activist, is using the debate to argue that he has a broad coalition of support behind his bid for the presidency. His campaign has said that they are more focused on the states of South Carolina and Nevada, rather than Iowa and New Hampshire, as the path tovictory.
In South Carolina in particular, Steyer has been spending heavily on television ads and a direct mail campaign. In a state where African Americans make up 60% of the Democratic electorate, Steyer’s campaign has also made a point of employing black vendors and hiring local organizers. While Joe Biden still holds a wide lead in South Carolina polls, and in national polls of African Americans, in-state polls have shown Steyer on the rise. His team hopes to capitalize it. The day before New Hampshire voters head to the polls, Steyer will be campaigning in South Carolinainstead.
Similar to the finish in Iowa, New Hampshire polls indicate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg vying for first place, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden further back.
Since mid-January, Sanders has held a consistent average lead in Granite State polls. Buttigieg only recently saw a bump,post-Iowa.
Here’s a small update on where each of the four front-runners standstonight:
Sanders
Sanders finished in a virtual tie in Iowa and takes the debate stage tonight just a day after his campaign announced it raised $25 million last month. The campaign said it was its “single best fundraising month to date.” And that’s saying something, considering Sanders has led fundraising in the Democratic field for much of the past year. In the same announcement, the campaign said it would also be increasing staff in Super Tuesday states. And remember, Sanders comes into this New Hampshire primary after winning it in 2016 by 22 percentagepoints.
Buttigieg
Despite no official winner called out of Iowa, Buttigieg appears to have gotten a bounce after leading in estimated delegates and finishing in a virtual tie with Sanders. It sent a message to his competitors that he might be the one to beat among the moderates. New Hampshire, like Iowa, is also an overwhelmingly white electorate, which could help Buttigieg, given his struggles in the polls with voters of color. But New Hampshire also poses a potentially greater challenge than Iowa, given Sanders and Warren have something of home-state advantages being from states nextdoor.
Warren
After finishing third in Iowa, Warren heads into the debate tonight with a lot on the line. She needs to do well in New Hampshire, and that means at least finishing ahead of — or very close to — Sanders. Warren has high name recognition here being from neighboring Massachusetts, but Sanders also has home-turf advantage being from neighboringVermont.
Biden
Following a fourth-place finish in Iowa, former Vice President Joe Biden admitted to supporters Wednesday that the caucus results had been “a gut punch.” Biden continues to poll well in Nevada and South Carolina, two states with more diverse electorates than Iowa and New Hampshire, but Biden can’t afford anymore bad headlines. South Carolina is a must-win for Biden. He has overwhelming support with black voters, who make up the majority of the electorate in the Palmetto State, but he needs to perform well at tonight’s debate to reassure those voters that he’s got what ittakes.
Democrats are convening tonight in New Hampshire after their first-in-the-nation caucuses this week imploded in a huge embarrassment. As NPR’s Miles Parks and Iowa Public Radio’s Kate Payne reported beforehand, Iowa’s state party attempted to deploy a previously little-known app to help with the caucuses — one that failed spectacularly to perform as hoped. New Hampshire runs a conventional primary, not a caucus, and state leaders there say they’re more confident about a more normal night on Tuesday. All the same, the Iowa debacle has underscored that this year’s elections may bring more reasons to shake Americans’ confidence in elections even four years after the Russian attack on the 2016race.
As you wait to see whether tonight’s candidates address Iowa or other primary political activity, one thing has become clear about another upcoming caucus, in Nevada: As NPR’s Pam Fessler reported, it will not be using anapp.
Of Those On Stage, Yang Has Held The Most N.H.Events
Former tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang has held 97 events in New Hampshire since late June 2019, according to New Hampshire Public Radio’s candidatetracker.
That’s tops among the candidates on stage tonight — and tied with two candidates who didn’t qualify for this debate: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and Hawaii Rep. TulsiGabbard.
Here’s the event tally for the other six candidates onstage:
Sanders Is Tops In N.H. Polling, With ButtigiegSurging
Ahead of tonight’s debate from Manchester — and four days ahead of the Democratic primary there — here’s what the polling lookslike:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who easily won the 2016 New Hampshire primary, is ahead again, at about 26% in the Real Clear Politics pollingaverage.
Second is former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who’s risen from 13.7% in the polling average on Monday — the day of his strong result in the Iowa caucuses — to 21.8%today.
While Buttigieg has surged, former Vice President Joe Biden has dropped. He’s now at 13% in the polling average — just behind Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s at13.3%.
Also keep an eye on Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who’s at 8% in the polling average, twice what her support was in the RCP average a monthago.
After the messy Iowa caucuses, the political world now turns to New Hampshire. Seven candidates will take the debate stage in Manchester, N.H., tonight at 8 p.m. ET. That state hosts its primaryTuesday.
Similar to the finish in Iowa, New Hampshire polls indicate Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg vying for first place, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden further back.
