On Monday in New Hampshire, the Republicans’ second-tier candidates saw fresh hope as they sprinted to the finish line, buoyed by Rubio’s Saturday night debate stumble in New Hampshire.
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A day before the nation’s first primary, Donald Trump ramped up his schedule in the state where he’s poised to clinch his first victory Tuesday following a humbling second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has closed the gap on Bernie Sanders’ once-commanding lead in the Granite state, but the Vermont Senator still holds a almost 13 point lead. Campaigning across the northeastern state on Monday with her husband and daughter, she worked to flip Sanders’ favored critique against her by claiming that he, too, had taken money from Wall Street – if only indirectly.
It doesn’t send many delegates to party conventions in July to vote for the ultimate nominee, but the momentum generated by winning New Hampshire can be vital to the success of campaigns. Those candidates who fare poorly could see donations dry up and face pressure to withdraw from the race.
“Well, actually, I would pay them to keep running that clip because that’s what I believe passionately”, Rubio said, before repeating himself twice more for good measure.
“That’s terrible, terrible”, Trump said as the audience erupted into a mix of laughs and cheers and he threw his hands into the air and moved away from the microphone. “I think it’s a very sad situation that’s taking place”.
The enmity was mutual.
“@realDonaldTrump, you aren’t just a loser, you are a liar and a whiner. She said that he’s a pussy”, Trump informed the crowd at the Verizon Wireless Arena in downtown Manchester on the eve of the state’s primary election. Polls predict a heated contest between establishment candidates Marco Rubio and John Kasich, and Ted Cruz, the ultraconservative Texas senator who won in Iowa.
Over the weekend, a pair of prominent Clinton supporters criticized female voters who support Sanders despite the prospect of electing the first female president.
Sanders, a Democratic socialist who proposes drastically larger government welfare programs, also campaigned in Manchester, where he continued to rail against economic inequality.
Sensing Rubio’s vulnerability, almost everyone seemed to be on the attack.
No candidate now commands a majority of Republican opinion, but Cruz and Rubio have equally benefited from Trump’s decline. Christie and Bush both piled on Rubio, claiming he hadn’t been tested the way that governors have. “She is losing the youth vote, she is losing the women’s vote, but then she is tough and most competitive when being on the defensive”.
Clinton was shouldering renewed troubles amid talk of a possible campaign reshuffling.
Rubio said he will continue saying the same things about Obama because his campaign is built on reversing the Democratic president’s policies.
The former first lady insisted it was all overblown. Hoping to avoid any last-minute misstep, he stuck to core campaign themes as he addressed cheering supporters in Nashua.
He received a half-dozen endorsements from state officials who had formerly backed Rand Paul.
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Yet Sanders passed up all that on Monday, instead telling supporters in Nashua, “We have come a long way in the last nine months”.
