Trump, Sanders continue lead on New Hampshire primary eve

The only group that has spent more is Right to Rise, the pro-Bush super PAC that has dropped almost $10 million in the state, with many ads lashing Rubio.

Cruz is riding high, of course, and can even dream of sneaking into second place in Tuesday’s primary.

Clinton, after a campaign stop in Manchester, responded to the reports of a campaign shakeup in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday, acknowledging her campaign will “take stock” of their operation. During the week leading up to Iowa, Trump had garnered 48 minutes of airtime on the Big Three evening newscasts, or 57.2 percent of the total coverage given to the GOP field.

Tonight we are going to replace widespread, unsupportable media speculation about the state of the presidential nomination contests with some facts – who voted for whom and why. Perhaps the most important numbers coming from University of New Hampshire public opinion surveys of likely voters conducted over the weekend showed they are still making up their minds: Among Democrats, 16% are still deciding and 23% leaning toward a candidate, while for Republicans, it’s 31% still deciding and 24% leaning toward a candidate.

In New Hampshire, voters who are not registered with a party can vote in either’s primary on Tuesday, and such undeclared voters make up a plurality of the state’s electorate.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, the fourth-place finisher in Iowa after getting 9 percent of the vote, continues to tread water on the campaign trail and in the debates.

It’s essentially a three-man GOP race going into New Hampshire. And four and maybe most importantly, the two are outsiders maybe best channeling the anger and frustration in America.

Hillary Clinton is vowing to “keep working until the last vote is cast and counted” as voting in the New Hampshire primary begins.

Sanders’s scripts, meanwhile, make no concession that a Trump victory should be taken for granted.

While at a rally in New Hampshire on Monday, someone shouted from the audience “he’s a p*ssy” in reference to Ted Cruz and Donald (being the class act that he is) started laughing and then told the audience, “she just said a awful thing”. So a big, double-digit win for Sanders would give him a huge boost heading into next week’s Nevada caucuses, where the Clinton campaign is hoping its union-based “firewall” is still strong.

Beyond the two front-runners, how should we look at the expectations game?

“Let’s not forget who whipped who in Iowa”, Tyler said, referencing how Cruz beat Trump in last week’s Iowa caucuses. Monday was a double-whammy for Clinton. And it will all mean more Bloomberg stories and even Biden chatter… again. Few tracking polls were in the field after Saturday’s debate, so it’s hard to measure whether Rubio’s shaky performance hurt him with voters.

One candidate who has already booked his spot in later rounds is Cruz, thanks to his victory in Iowa. While Cruz’s path to the nomination doesn’t go through New Hampshire, the former outcome would be preferable to the latter, especially after a rough week (debate, accusations of winning Iowa unfairly). New Hampshire is notorious for delivering welcome – and unwelcome – surprises to candidates. But that’s the situation now.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s roasting of Florida Sen. What are stores like on Christmas Eve in New Hampshire?

Rubio’s competition is close behind.

That’s because it’s been a grim year for the Governor’s Club, with four of the members who entered the race – Republicans Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker and Democrat Martin O’Malley – crashing out early.

Trump was, in other words, in full populist mode as he wrapped up his New Hampshire campaign, in which he leads the closest Republican competition by about 15 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. But it’s just as plausible that New Hampshire could be the beginning of Bush’s second wind.

All of them filled their calendars with campaign events in SC, the next state to vote, signaling they had no intention of dropping out, no matter the verdict in New Hampshire.