Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… Your Lid authors are on the road in New Hampshire, where we have sadly been unsuccessful in our efforts to bribe the staff at the Manchester Radisson into playing the Cantina Theme from Star Wars in the lobby.
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‘16 from 30,000
Before the Iowa caucuses, we nagged our patient Lid readers not to forget that John Edwards played a role as a spoiler for Hillary Clinton in Iowa eight years ago. So, when comparing then versus now for Clinton here in New Hampshire, we naturally looked back at the numbers from the 2008 primary to see how the other candidates still in the race impacted the dynamics of Hillary Clinton’s win here too. It turns out that Edwards -- along with Bill Richardson, who stuck around to finish fourth in New Hampshire -- accounted for more than 20 percent of the vote in the state in 2008. Now, with the big caveat that our NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll was in the field last week - so things might have changed since then -- Clinton’s level of support has actually been registering about where she was at the end of the night on January 8, 2008. She won the 2008 primary with 39 percent of the vote, including pluralities among women (46 percent) and registered Democrats (43 percent) -- although she lost among independents. In the NBC poll last week, Clinton got the support of 38 percent of New Hampshire primary voters, including 46 percent of women and 46 percent of Democrats. Clinton appears to be losing to Sanders badly (ie worse than she did to Obama in 2008) with independents and young people. But it’s maybe worth noting that she’s getting the same overall SHARE of voters that she was eight years ago. The difference is: The remainder of voters have consolidated around Sanders instead of being divided among three or four different candidates.
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
- Follow Live! The best blog on in all of politics will keep you up-to-date on all the latest happenings ahead of the New Hampshire primary.
- Bill Clinton is keeping up the pressure on Bernie Sanders ahead of tomorrow’s primary, MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reports.
- NBC’s Leigh Ann Caldwell writes about the special importance New Hampshire holds for the Clintons.
- In today’s Tales from the Trail: Reporters found themselves freezing for Trump in Londonderry, N.H.
- Watch: Before he was a senator or presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders was an innovative mayor in Burlington, Vermont.
- And from First Read this AM: Five storylines to watch tomorrow.
FOR THE RECORD…
“There's still people shopping, it's 34 hours to go. If you do this in every other part of your life, I can only imagine what the stores look like on Christmas Eve.”
Chris Christie on New Hampshire voters’ famous tendency to decide late in the primary process.
TOMORROW’S SKED
It’s New Hampshire primary day!
