Chaos Wins Republican Primary in New Hampshire

Don­ald Trump’s re­sound­ing vic­tory in New Hamp­shire not only ce­men­ted the busi­ness­man’s stand­ing as a front-run­ning GOP can­did­ate. The crowded un­der­card battle for second place was as con­sequen­tial, en­sur­ing a long, pro­trac­ted fight for the Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­a­tion that could well be de­cided at the Clev­e­land con­ven­tion.

Trump ex­ceeded the already high ex­pect­a­tions he faced in the state, win­ning with 34 per­cent of the vote. He will re­cov­er some of the mo­mentum he lost after fin­ish­ing a dis­ap­point­ing second in Iowa. Des­pite a light­er sched­ule in New Hamp­shire and vul­gar clos­ing rally Monday night, he’ll again have proven that the nor­mal rules of polit­ics don’t ap­ply in such an anti­es­tab­lish­ment year. He won nearly 30 per­cent of wo­men voters, 30 per­cent of col­lege gradu­ates, and 29 per­cent of voters whose fam­il­ies made over $100,000 a year. He broadened sup­port past his base and, if that holds past New Hamp­shire, he’ll be a for­mid­able can­did­ate to the end.

“We are go­ing to make Amer­ica great again!” Trump said as he began his vic­tory speech. “New Hamp­shire, we’re not go­ing to for­get you. You star­ted it.”

The equally sig­ni­fic­ant takeaway is that, con­trary to the in­dic­a­tions from Iowa, the so-called es­tab­lish­ment lane will be crowded un­til South Car­o­lina—and po­ten­tially even longer.  That’s a night­mare scen­ario for party lead­ers look­ing for the most elect­able nom­in­ee to emerge from the scrum.

Marco Ru­bio looked as if he had se­cured that role with an im­press­ive third-place fin­ish in Iowa, but his de­bate stumble knocked him all the way down to an em­bar­rass­ing fifth place in New Hamp­shire. He’s barely above the 10 per­cent threshold ne­ces­sary to win a del­eg­ate out of the Gran­ite State. His cam­paign was so fo­cused on mes­sage dis­cip­line even after his de­bate re­pe­ti­tions that it un­der­es­tim­ated New Hamp­shire voters’ ap­pre­ci­ation for un­var­nished au­then­ti­city. In­stead of jok­ing about his gaffe, he doubled down on his mes­sage.  That cost him badly in the fi­nal stretch of the primary.

Ru­bio is also can­celing a sched­uled ap­pear­ance in South Car­o­lina Wed­nes­day to vote on North Korea sanc­tions le­gis­la­tion. It’s a sign that his own cam­paign re­cog­nized that miss­ing Sen­ate votes only played in­to his biggest vul­ner­ab­il­ity—the idea that he doesn’t have the ex­per­i­ence to be pres­id­ent.

The res­ults also en­sure that Jeb Bush and John Kasich will re­main in the race for the long haul. With a strong second-place fin­ish, Kasich will now be mo­tiv­ated to stick around un­til (at least) Ohio’s win­ner-take-all primary on March 15. Be­cause the race is head­ing south, the un­der­fun­ded, out-or­gan­ized un­der­dog doesn’t ex­pect many op­por­tun­it­ies to win del­eg­ates be­fore then. But mark the March 8 Michigan primary as a test of his stay­ing power.

Bush didn’t have nearly as good a show­ing as Kasich, fin­ish­ing with just 11 per­cent of the vote—des­pite his cam­paign and al­lied su­per PAC spend­ing about $35 mil­lion in the state. But by fin­ish­ing ahead of his protégé-turned-nemes­is Ru­bio, Bush is likely to sol­dier onto South Car­o­lina, where he’s backed by Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham and where his broth­er, George W. Bush, is ex­pec­ted to cam­paign on his be­half. Between his cam­paign and su­per PAC, he will also have the fin­an­cial re­sources to con­tin­ue at­tack­ing his es­tab­lish­ment-lane rivals, pre­vent­ing them from get­ting too much mo­mentum.

It’s the emer­ging Ru­bio-Bush clash that prom­ises to be a massive head­ache for prag­mat­ic-minded party lead­ers. Bush barely stayed in the top rung. If not for Ru­bio’s costly gaffe, his show­ing would have been seen as dis­ap­point­ing. Now the enmity between the two cam­paigns is even more pitched.

Ted Cruz is in the best shape go­ing for­ward of all the Re­pub­lic­an can­did­ates. He fin­ished in third place even though he barely spent any money in New Hamp­shire. He’s well or­gan­ized and well fun­ded head­ing in­to South Car­o­lina, where he will be en­gaged in a bru­tal battle with Trump. If he can beat Trump, he’ll be very well-po­si­tioned in the Deep South states that pre­dom­in­ate on Su­per Tues­day. “Wash­ing­ton lib­er­als may find South Car­o­lina far less hos­pit­able en­virons,” Cruz said in his postelec­tion speech, in a jibe at his more-mod­er­ate rivals.

Chris Christie, mean­while, an­nounced he was re­turn­ing home to New Jer­sey in­stead of head­ing to cam­paign in South Car­o­lina—a clear sign that the end of his cam­paign is near. If he drops out, it will be the ul­ti­mate in­sult to Ru­bio, whose cam­paign was wounded by a chal­lenger who did noth­ing for his own can­did­acy in the pro­cess. It was the ul­ti­mate murder-sui­cide.

The over­all post-New Hamp­shire win­ner is chaos. If the anti-Trump, anti-Cruz forces in the party can’t rally be­hind a favored al­tern­at­ive be­fore Su­per Tues­day, it’s in­creas­ingly likely that no one will be able to se­cure a ma­jor­ity of del­eg­ates at the end of the pro­cess.