Left-wing Senator Sanders won his first victory and narrowly won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire against Buttigieg. Former Vice President Biden is far behind. But there was also a surprise success.
Leftist Senator Bernie Sanders has won the presidential primary of the opposition Democrats in the state of New Hampshire. The US media reported after counting almost all votes.
Sanders, the 78-year-old Senator from Vermont, was 26 percent, followed by the moderately pragmatic applicants Pete Buttigieg (24.3 percent) and Amy Klobuchar (19.9 percent). Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden, who are likely to be left empty-handed in the delegate votes, were far behind.
Sanders: Beat Trump and rebuild the country
“This victory is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” said Sanders to his followers. It’s about defeating Trump – “the most dangerous president in recent history” – in the November election, Sanders said.
But at the same time it is also about “transforming our country”, Sanders cried. The 78-year-old promised that he would take on Wall Street, the oil industry and the billionaires and campaign for better health care, higher taxes for the rich, stricter gun laws and the fight against climate change.
Good results also for Buttigieg and Klobuchar
Competitor Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend in the state of Indiana, on the other hand, called for moderation: “We cannot beat the most divisive president if we kill anyone who does not agree with us 100 percent.” After his surprise success in Iowa, Buttigieg is now preparing to become the favorite of his party’s moderate forces.
But Senator Klobuchar is also courting voters in the middle and came off surprisingly well: she advanced to third place, apparently with the support of many women. She will beat Donald Trump, announced the Minnesota senator, who had grown steadily in the past few weeks. Klobuchar is a candidate for the moderate Democrats and wants to unite the party.
Disappointing result for Biden
However, the election evening was completely disappointing for Biden, who had previously predicted that he would “get a punch” in New Hampshire. Already in Iowa it was only enough for the previous poll leader to take fourth place. On Tuesday Biden was no longer in New Hampshire, but in South Carolina, where he hopes to do well in the area code at the end of the month. In South Carolina, Biden has great backing from black voters.
Senator Warren was also visibly disappointed with the mere nine percent of the vote she got: the 70-year-old applicant told supporters that both Sanders and Buttigieg were “great people, and each of them would be a much better president than Donald Trump” , But she remains in the race.
Applicant field is thinning out
But while the counting in the New England state continued, the field of democratic applicants for the White House narrowed further: entrepreneur Andrew Yang and the moderate Senator Michael Bennet announced their exit from the race.
Yang, the 45-year-old entrepreneur and political newcomer whose parents are from Taiwan, started with a promise of a basic income of $ 1,000 for everyone. But it quickly became apparent in the area code in New Hampshire that he would remain below three percent.
The area code was held eight days after the so-called Caucuses – electoral assemblies – of the Democrats in Iowa, who were immersed in chaos. A technical error in an election app had hindered the transmission of data in the state in the Midwest. It was only on Sunday that the Democrats in Iowa announced that Buttigieg had landed in front of Sanders with a narrow lead of two delegates.
Trump wins Republican primary
Republican preselection in New Hampshire effortlessly won President Trump for lack of serious competition. Opponent Candidate Bill Weld, ex-Governor of Massachusetts, had no chance against the incumbent.
Four years ago, New Hampshire helped Trump achieve his first primary victory, but in the main election he narrowly lost the state to his then democratic rival Hillary Clinton. According to observers, New Hampshire is one of those states likely to fall into the Trump camp in this year’s presidential election.
With information from Katrin Brand, ARD-Studio Washington
