Sanders and Trump make the noise in New Hampshire

“I liked his experience and his approach to the economy”, said Peggy Larkin, a 44-year-old human resources coordinator from Hollis who turned out for Kasich’s party here.

What would a Trump presidency be like?

It is considered a better barometer of the overall sentiment of the Republican base than Iowa, which in recent years has anointed the ultra-conservative candidate out of the GOP pack, or New Hampshire, whose large bloc of independent voters can produce unpredictable outcomes. By political capital, I mean that, unlike in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters enjoy months and months of courting and lots of personal contact, we are moving from the retail to wholesale phase of the campaign.

In perhaps a bid to quell fears about his temperament, he mostly shied away from personal attacks on his rivals as they debated Saturday.

Indeed, until a few weeks ago the Clinton campaign looked invincible.

Republican elites Wednesday were digesting the reality that Trump, a former reality TV star, had defied skeptics and turned his polling numbers in the primary into a thumping victory, a performance that offers new credibility to his wide leads in other states.

The brashness, though, is what his voters like. According to exit polls, 55 percent of women-including 70 percent of women under 30-backed the Vermont senator. Both Republicans and Democrats in New Hampshire confirmed the mood of the country: anger, disgust, frustration. “No one else is saying it like he is”.

“Well he had 65 percent who didn’t vote for him”, Kasich said. But he concedes amazement that Cruz spent very little in a state, namely New Hampshire, most figured was a total waste of time for him – and still came in third.

This time it is the donor-class, comfort-zone favorites who are splitting the vote, to the benefit of the two names that strike fear into the hearts of ivory-tower kingmakers: Trump and Cruz.

I’m the right porridge. Mondale finally turned to Hart and said to him in a debate, reprising a line from a fast-food commercial of the time, “When I hear your new ideas, Gary, I am reminded of that commercial, ‘Where’s the beef?'” Clinton may need something similar, a moment where she changes the current dynamic of the race and forces people to pause and reassess their consideration of Sanders. “One of them is too hot, one of them is too cold”.

– Conservatism? Meh: Trump doesn’t sell himself as either a small-government hawk, or as a social conservative.

And he appeared to place ahead of Rubio in early returns.

The traditional view is that Americans elect the most positive, uplifting candidate, a description that fits past winners like Ronald Reagan and Obama. (Of course, it was also before Cruz’s win in Iowa.) Cruz will spend the next week telling South Carolinians that this is a two-man race and that their choice is between Trumpism and conservatism.

American Bridge 21st Century super PAC workers Eddie Vale, left, and Kevin McAlister and Vale wore Marco Rubio robot costumes to capitalize on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s attack on Rubio’s style and delivery of talking points.

“There’s a big difference”, Mr. Rubio said.

The billionaire political novice on Tuesday posted a decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, a once-unthinkable first for an enterprise built on the promise of putting America on top and turning politics on its head. Marco Rubio performed poorly, by his own admission.

Christie has cancelled an event Wednesday in SC, an organizer says. The Ohio governor only captured 2 percent of the vote in Iowa. Next up are 11 Southern and Midwestern states March 1 and 5 with sizable numbers of Christian voters.

Even if he continues on to the SEC primary, though, he’ll have to contend with two candidates in Trump and Cruz who are both strong in the south and at least one of whom will have two victories (and possibly three) by then.

This campaign is not dead.

“If I come out of New Hampshire as a big story, I think I will be the nominee and I think I have an excellent chance to be president”, Kasich told CNN before the results were in.

The focus now shifts to SC, where Florida native sons Bush and Rubio will try to deliver a fatal blow to each other’s campaigns. That includes native son Sen.

In the 2000 presidential election, the bitter onslaught between George W. Bush and John McCain were particularly pronounced in SC.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has finished third in the New Hampshire primary behind victor Donald Trump and runner-up John Kasich.