How well does Bernie Sanders have to do to beat Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire? It’s no longer an academic question.
The self-described socialist senator from Vermont has broken 30 percent in the last two Granite State polls. Suffolk University has him within 10, trailing Clinton 41 percent to 31 percent. Morning Consult pegs the race at 44 percent Clinton, 32 percent Sanders.
In the former, Sanders is actually leading Clinton among Democratic men, 35 percent to 32 percent. The source of the former secretary of state’s lead is her overwhelming advantage among women.
All this constitutes a bit of a surge on the part of Sanders, who previously hadn’t topped 18 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. Hailing from neighboring Vermont, it is easy for him to campaign in New Hampshire. He is familiar to the locals, some of whom have seen his congressional campaign ads for a quarter century. And there is a subset of a Democratic voters hungry for any alternative, especially of the progressive variety.
The obvious answer to what it would take to beat Clinton is that Sanders must get more votes than Clinton. But given the expectations game in politics, that’s not necessarily the case.
In 1992, Pat Buchanan was perceived as dealing a serious setback to President George H.W. Bush’s re-election efforts when the conservative commentator received 37 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. But Bush still won the primary with 53 percent, a 16-point margin. Based on expectations, that wasn’t good enough.
Lyndon Johnson was actually forced out of the 1968 race for the White House by Eugene McCarthy’s strong showing in New Hampshire despite being a sitting president — and despite getting more votes than McCarthy in the primary. Johnson’s 49 percent to 42 percent margin over McCarthy was deemed unsatisfactory for a sitting president.
Hillary Clinton is an overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Sanders will have to do much better among minority voters to change that reality. Yet with that overwhelming advantage comes one pitfall: Anything less than a landslide can be interpreted as a defeat.
Based on the current, extremely early polling, Hillary isn’t looking at a landslide in New Hampshire just yet.
