Just one week after the Iowa caucuses, two new candidates took home important victories after the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primaries.
Donald Trump, who has dominated media coverage of the upcoming 2016 presidential election, accrued 35.4 percent of the Republican vote, as well as 10 of 23 delegates. This is Trump’s first major victory, after losing by 3 percent in Iowa to Ted Cruz.
Cruz had a pedestrian day in The Granite State, picking up 11.7 percent of the vote with only two delegates, coming in third. John Kasich, current governor of Ohio, came in second, earning four delegates and 15.8 percent of the vote.
Many pundits are saying that there are only five candidates for the Republicans that stand a chance of winning. Fox News said that the “still alive five” included Kasich, Trump and Cruz along with Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush.
Bernie Sanders accrued 15 of the 24 delegates in New Hampshire after posting a relative landslide victory with 60.4 percent to Hillary Clinton’s nine delegates and 38 percent vote.
According to CNN, the loss in New Hampshire is tough for Clinton to take, as it shows the desire within the Democrats for Sander’s strong demand for a “political revolution.” The 20-point defeat is compounded by the fact that the win in Iowa was by a .3 percent margin.
Primaries, being a measure of public opinion, are in no way binding to specific candidates, so between now and election time anything can happen. The next primary elections will be between Feb. 20 and Feb. 27 in Nevada and South Carolina, respectively.
