New Hampshire primary: For 2020 Democrats, Granite State is boom or bust

Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are setting the pace in a still-crowded field, says Clark Mindock, as President Trump attempts to steal the spotlight with his own rally

Bernie Sanders greets supporters after a campaign event in Rindge, New Hampshire (Getty)

With a year’s worth of hard work and campaigning hanging in the balance, Democratic presidential candidates have stormed across New Hampshire this week, hoping to make a connection with voters in the state as temperatures have dropped and the race has heated up.

In communities across the state, volunteers from across the country have knocked on doors and made phone calls to support their politicians of choice. Yard signs are ubiquitous, sticking out from snow banks and taped to poles advertising candidates from Elizabeth Warren to Andrew Yang to Tulsi Gabbard along roads in towns across the Granite State.

The stakes are high. In election years past, New Hampshire voters have made the difference between winners and losers, playing an important role in slimming down strong fields by signalling to national voters and potential donors who is a viable candidate and who is not. For Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the top performers in the recent Iowa caucus, there is added pressure: the failure to meet expectations would put a major dent in their 2020 prospects.

And so candidates have criss-crossed the state from Claremont and Lebanon to Nashua and Manchester, making a last-minute case to voters in the state that they’re the best chance Democrats have to take on Donald Trump in November.

“We can be a decent country and a prosperous country,” former vice president Joe Biden, who struggled in Iowa and has struggled here in New Hampshire, told voters in Gilford a day before voters head to the primary. “We can do both. We have done both. And I think President Obama and I did do both.”

Leading the field heading into primary day are Sanders, 78, and Buttigieg, 38, with the Vermont senator showing early signs that he might pull away and see a decisive victory over the former mayor of South Bend.

The two men have offered up starkly different visions for the future of America, with the elder of the two promising major changes in the relationship between government and people, and a platform centred on income inequality and challenging the healthcare status quo.

Buttigieg, meanwhile, has promised more incremental change to the healthcare system, and sought to appeal to more moderate voters in the state who have seen Sanders as perhaps too radical a bet to take on Donald Trump come November.

But Sanders appeared undaunted on the eve of the primaries, telling voters at an event in Concord that the world is watching the Granite State to see how they might vote, before he headed off for a “get out the vote” rally in Durham set to begin at the same time as a rally by Trump, who was travelling to Manchester.

“Not only is the whole country looking at New Hampshire tomorrow, but the world is looking at New Hampshire,” Sanders said. “What is New Hampshire going to do?”

His comments came as he opened up an eight point-lead over Mr Buttigieg in a Monday poll by WBZ–Boston Globe–Suffolk University.

Behind the two frontrunners was Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator whose campaign has seen renewed interest in the state after the apparent collapse of Biden’s campaign. Voters may feel that nominating Buttigieg, the mayor of mid-sized Indiana city with no federal or statewide experience, is a wise choice.

Klobuchar registered at 14 per cent support in the tracking poll, behind Buttigieg with 19 per cent Behind them were Biden and Warren with 11.8 and 11.6 per cent of the vote, respectively.