Who Was New Hampshire’s Biggest Winner or Loser?

They began as longshots.

As we move on to states with multi-ethnic voters and more complex economies and societal challenges, Republicans will be glad to have a smaller field.

Just as Donald Trump was supposed to be savoring an all-but-sure victory in the New Hampshire primary, a vulgar remark that he made has cast a shadow over his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

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.

For governor John Kasich, whose second-place showing was New Hampshire’s primary stunner, the task was to convert new-found interest into support in a state ideologically distant from his native Ohio.

“The only candidate who can beat Donald Trump is me”, Cruz told reporters in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where Republicans vote on February 20. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom never recovered from his “Rubiobot” moment in Saturday’s debate.

“If we nominate Marco Rubio, I assure you he will be the next president of the United States”, Gowdy said. Still, both needed to deliver on expectations after second-place finishes in last week’s leadoff Iowa caucuses, where Ted Cruz topped the Republican field and Hillary Clinton narrowly edged Sanders in the Democratic race.

Republicans head directly to SC, the first in a string of Southern contests that will ultimately test whether Cruz, Rubio or both can force Trump into a long primary fight. “We have a very diverse electorate here, the state is diverse geographically and diverse in terms of issues people care about”, said South Carolina GOP chairman Matt Moore.

Among Republicans, several candidates embraced the chaos Thursday as they felt out the best strategies to survive SC and advance into a grueling March primary schedule, when 58 percent of the party’s delegate total will be at stake. “In short, he does not have the money or organization to be viable in SC and beyond”, said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

“The goal was to be in the top tier of candidates moving forward and I think the effort put into New Hampshire put him in the top tier”, Negron said Wednesday from Tallahassee.

Far behind in New Hampshire voting, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Ms Fiorina dropped out, and a spokeswoman for New Jersey governor Christie said his race was over, too. He will have more of his family in tow this time, as former President George W. Bush will be on hand to stump for Jeb and has already cut an ad supporting his brother.

Christie announced Wednesday he was ending his White House bid, following a dismal performance Tuesday in New Hampshire. At an event in Windham, New Hampshire, on Monday, one undecided voter told Kasich she was trying to decide whether to support him or Democrats Clinton and Sanders.

A stunning 69 percent of women under the age of 45 voted for Sanders over Clinton Tuesday, including a whopping 82 percent of those under 30. The senator ate a stack of blueberry pancakes – soft food, he said, because he cracked a molar the night before on a flight back to Washington, D.C.

The next stop on the presidential primary list: SC and Nevada. It would come as little shock if the former secretary of state and current Democratic front-runner lost to Vermont Sen.