Cook Political: So Now What?

[brooklynite]

[link:https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/so-now-what|]

New Hampshire is an ideal environment for both Sanders and Buttigieg. Sanders’ anti-establishment, blue-collar and libertarian constituency is well-represented in the “Live Free or Die State.” Meanwhile, Buttigieg’s suburban appeal (which he displayed in Iowa by winning in the suburban enclaves around Des Moines), is well-suited for the populous (and prosperous) southern part of the state, essentially an exurb of Boston. It’s also clear that Buttigieg’s success in Iowa has gotten him second looks up here. An event on Thursday at an American Legion hall in Merrimack was at capacity, and Buttigieg organizers had to shoo away those of us shivering in the gloomy, wet weather who were waiting to get in.

Buttigieg, however, is unlikely to win this ‘moderate’ or non-Bernie lane without a fight.

In New Hampshire on Wednesday, Biden told a campaign crowd: “I have great respect for Mayor Pete and his service to this nation. But I do believe it’s a risk, to be just straight up with you, for this party to nominate someone who has never held an office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 people in Indiana. I do believe it’s a risk.” As I write this on Thursday afternoon, it remains to be seen if he or the other two candidates vying to win over that non-Bernie lane like Warren and Klobuchar will challenge Buttigieg directly on stage at Friday night’s Democratic debate in Manchester.

New Hampshire has also been friendly to underdog candidates in the past. Think John McCain in 2008. Or Bill Clinton in 1992. But, can the former Vice President have his own “comeback kid,” moment in the Granite State? “I don’t think so,” Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, told me on Thursday. “New Hampshire voters aren’t riding and dying with him [Biden].”

Biden’s struggles to generate on-the-ground energy make it a challenge for him to pick up that “ride or die” momentum. To be sure, there are plenty of candidates who won their party’s nomination despite their struggles with generating buzz or big, energetic crowds; think Mitt Romney, John Kerry and Al Gore. Of course, all three also went lost in the Electoral College come fall. But, those candidates had an advantage in their primaries that Biden doesn’t: money. On Thursday, Sanders announced that the campaign had hauled in $25 million in January — $2 million more than what Biden had raised in the entire fourth quarter of 2019.