« Predicting New Hampshire - the 2008 Primary | Main | Kerry Endorses Obama, Richardson Drops Out »
2008 New Hampshire Primary Results and Analysis
By Bill | January 10, 2008 | Email This Post
The results are (mostly) final… 99%+ reporting in. Your winners, with the estimated number of delegates captured in parenthesis, courtesy of CNN:
Democrats:
- Clinton - 39% (9)
- Obama - 37% (9)
- Edwards - 17% (4)
- Richardson - 5% (0)
- Kucinich -1% (0)
Republicans:
- McCain - 37% (7)
- Romney - 31% (4)
- Huckabee - 11% (1)
- Giuliani- 9% (0)
- Paul - 8% (0)
- Thompson - 1% (0)
My predictions: So, how did I do with my predictions? Very well, if I do say so myself. I got the Republican order of finish exactly right, as well as predicting the narrowness of the Huckabee/Giuliani/Paul bottleneck. On the Democratic side, I did pretty well, too… I would have gotten that one completely correct, too, but I had picked Obama finishing ahead of Clinton, while he actually fell about 7500 votes short - though he did tie with her in the delegate count.
So. Not too shabby for someone with no political credentials at all.. I was as good as, if not better than, most of the TV folks (and hey, we all got the Obama call wrong!) Networks, if you’re listening, I’m available. (Imagine it: an Only-a-Bill and Dan Rather election night special… the ratings would go through the roof.)
Anyway. Further thoughts:
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: Her win surprised even her own campaign and threw her right back into a fight for the lead (or, I’d say, back slightly ahead of Obama as the favorite.) She was on the verge of completely shaking up her staff and message; it will be interesting to see if she will go ahead with her comeback win - yes, it was a comeback - to beat Obama, who lead in some polls by as much as 10% on the day before the election.
John Edwards: Another disappointing finish for Edwards, but one he had to see coming. He still has his silver medal from Iowa, although its luster is already nearly gone. Still, watching his concession speech Tuesday night, it seems clear that Edwards still has plenty of energy left. He’ll run strong into the South Carolina Democratic primary on January 26th. Edwards was born in South Carolina, and of course made his political name right next door in North Carolina. It that fails to bring him to the forefront, he’ll fade fast.
Dennis Kucinich: Kucinich’s campaign is going nowhere, and moreover, he’s not even drawing a lot of attention to his pet issues. The thing to do is retire gracefully and go back to being a Senator with national prominence, but Dennis hasn’t shown any signs of doing that so far.
Barack Obama: What a brief honeymoon for the winner of the Iowa caucuses. Polls had him with a 8-10% lead on the eve of the election, yet he went on to lose by 2%. A New Hampshire win could have made the rest of the election a real uphill battle for Clinton, but instead he ceded her the lead and has to get back to work. One analyst I read suggested that Obama, seeing such a big lead, went into turtle mode, preferring to coast to a victory rather than campaign aggressively and perhaps turn off the electorate. He won’t make that mistake again. He’s still in a great position, but now must quickly show he can repeat his Iowa victory - I think he will, probably in Nevada on January 19.
Bill Richardson - Word is that Richardson intends to suspend his campaign, if not formally withdraw from the race. All he can do now is play for a spot in the next administration, which is something he’s been clearly angling towards, playing peacemaker in the last several debates.
Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani: Rudy didn’t care about New Hampshire, or at least that was the story. He did, once… he spent about 40 days and something like the third most money of all the Republican candidates in the state before deciding it was unwinnable. His strategy revolves around Florida on January 29, where he hopes 1) expat New Yorkers will put him over the top, and 2) The Republican race will either still be a mess in desperate need of a frontrunner or be reduced at most to one other less palatable challenger (read: Huckabee or maybe McCain) that he can knock off.
Mike Huckabee: Huckabee never figured to do well in New Hampshire, so will happily take his third place finish and move on. He doesn’t figure to do terribly well in Michigan, so will head off toward South Carolina in hopes that the South’s conservative reputation will win the day for him.
John McCain: You’ve got to give it to McCain, whose campaign was written off as finished only a few months ago. He’s since had a respectable showing in Iowa, now a win in New Hampshire, and next he goes on to Michigan, a state he won in 2000. He’s now being called the frontrunner, although in my estimation his victory means there IS no frontrunner in the Republican race. McCain’s lack of conservative support will come back to haunt him in the coming races, particularly in the closed primary states where he can’t benefit from the independent votes he attracts. Still, one thing is certain: nobody will out-campaign him.
Ron Paul: another fifth-place finish for Paul. His speech after the votes were end sounded a lot like someone who has decided his place is as an attention-getter rather than legitimate contender. His supporters are die-hard enough that he won’t disappear, but his prospects of gaining any ground are bleak.
Fred Thompson: A terrible, terrible showing, but probably about what he deserves given his level of effort so far. All his hopes are with South Carolina, now.
That’s it for now. See you next time.
Topics: Editorial |
January 10th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
The poll predictions were correct. There evidences of irregularities that might have led to the result we all saw. It was due to vote counting fraud for which there is evidence right there in Sutton precinct, NH. I think that New Hampshire resident supporters of Ron Paul and Barack Obama should make an official complaint with the NH Secretary of State so the fraud could be investigated.