It’s showtime in New Hampshire — and the Democrats are still in disarray.
Despite months of campaigning that usually narrows voters’ choices down to a manageable few, the field of potentially viable candidates entering Tuesday’s all-important primary is only widening, to the dismay of party insiders — and the glee of the GOP.
“No one is going” out of the race, veteran Democratic consultant George Arzt told The Post. “Everyone is looking ahead to try to make it to Super Tuesday.”
A feisty performance in Friday night’s debate by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar — who has yet to break into double digits in the polls — left New Hampshire Democrats with at least five plausible candidates on Tuesday’s ballot.
Klobuchar’s debate jabs at Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg paid off, literally.
“Wow, our campaign has had our best fundraising hour ever,” the Minnesota Democrat tweeted just after the sparring match ended. On Saturday she claimed she raised $2 million in the hours after the contest — a significant haul for a candidate who took in just $11 million in the last three months of 2019.
But the Klo-mentum left the Democratic field more diffuse — and more divided — than ever.
“That’s a real concern,” said a senior Democratic political operative. “It could end up costing Democrats in a way that [convention] delegates can be so split that you don’t have a true and tested nominee. … [and] whoever is the nominee wouldn’t have a huge backing.”
Traditionally, the Iowa caucuses winnow the White House wannabes down to a manageable number of genuine contenders. The final debate before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary tends to narrow the group down even more.
But with Iowa’s results still unclear after the counting process broke down Monday – and on the heels of a dizzying week of Trumpian triumphs, including his impeachment acquittal and a reality-TV-style State of the Union address — the usual mechanisms went out the window.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ once-commanding lead in New Hampshire is shrinking — and may even have disappeared, according to polls released this weekend.
A surging Buttigieg nudged ahead of Sanders in the Boston Globe/WBZ/Suffolk University tracking poll, a daily survey of 500 likely-voter New Hampshire Democrats.
The gay Midwestern veteran was at 25 % in a poll taken Thursday and Friday — a single percentage point ahead of socialist Sanders’ 24%.
Another weekend poll had Sanders still in the lead in his New England backyard, with 28% support. But the CNN New Hampshire Poll also saw Buttigieg nipping at the senior senator’s heels, at 21%.
Both surveys were evidence of a Buttigieg boost in the days after he claimed victory in Iowa — a premature announcement that infuriated Sanders and his supporters.
Most of Buttigieg’s gains came at the expense of Vice President Joe Biden, the national frontrunner who flopped in the caucuses with a fourth-place finish.
Biden is at 11% in the Suffolk University poll — meaning he could see the same dismal result in New Hampshire. He is even behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who drew 14%.
“The quote unquote leader of the middle is faltering,” the Dem operative said. “That presents an opportunity for Klobuchar, Bloomberg, Buttigieg and others who are more moderate.”
“Reports of our death are premature,” Biden reassured campaign workers at his Manchester field office Saturday.
Biden made a bid for relevance Saturday with a vicious online ad that belittled Buttigieg by contrasting the veep’s long career in federal government with the former mayor’s more modest accomplishments.
“Joe Biden helped save the auto industry,” a narrator says. “Pete Buttigieg revitalized the sidewalks of downtown South Bend by laying out decorative brick,” she adds, over a comical music score.
The Buttigieg campaign hit back with a carefully worded statement.
“South Bend residents who now have better jobs, rising income and new life in their city don’t think their lives are a Washington politician’s punchline,” press secretary Chris Meagher said. “The vice president’s decision to run this ad speaks more to where he currently stands in this race than it does about Pete’s perspective.”
As Dems continued taking potshots at each other, all party leaders can do is sweat.
“We will learn a lot on Tuesday,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress.
But not even New Hampshire will bring calm to the Democrat chaos, as Super Tuesday — and the effect of Mike Bloomberg’s hundreds of millions in campaign spending — looms on March 3.
“Bloomberg will be the interesting one,” Arzt said. “He is the 800-pound gorilla if Biden stumbles.”
