MANCHESTER, N.H.—There is no ignoring it now, the American electorate’s disregard for establishment politicians promising incremental change. If the country’s fatigue with the prospect of a Clinton-Bush presidential matchup has hovered above this 2016 race like a latent current of electricity, Tuesday’s New Hampshire results were the long-awaited lightning strike.
Now, in a turn stunning for no one beyond Washington’s political and media elites, America faces the real possibility that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders could actually battle for the White House in November.
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Hillary Clinton is struggling to inspire broad grassroots support, just as she did eight years ago. And her woes might be the only solace for establishment Republicans, all of whom got, well, schlonged by a brash businessman running his first political race.
Trump thumbed his nose at New Hampshire’s tradition of diner stops and intimate town halls, failed to invest in a ground game and uttered a vulgar profanity never before spoken aloud by a presidential candidate at a rally the night before voters cast their ballots.
And his margin of victory appears to be the biggest since 1980, when Ronald Reagan crushed George H.W. Bush by 26 points.
While Sanders is exposing Clinton’s inability to excite the base of a party that’s moving left, the Democratic establishment still believes he’s a long-shot to win the party’s nomination. “That’s not going to happen unless or until he can broaden his support beyond white progressives and young people,” said Joe Trippi, the Democratic operative who guided the 2004 campaign of another Vermont Democrat, Howard Dean.
But already on Tuesday night, Clinton’s camp was beginning to lower expectations in the upcoming contests against Sanders in both South Carolina and Nevada.
“There’s going to be a narrowing in both places — we’re clear-eyed about that,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. “There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada. But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white voters. You have a caucus-style format, and he’ll have the momentum coming out of New Hampshire presumably, so there’s a lot of reasons he should do well.”
“There’s a reason to believe the race will tighten even there,” he said again.
Trump is already a serious and credible threat to win the Republican nomination, although that fight is likely to go on for months. He is a clear favorite as the Republican primary battle heads to South Carolina, where he holds a 20-point lead in the polls. Suddenly, the party’s establishment is panicking at the prospect of Trump stringing together wins and being unable to stop him at all.
“The problem is we can’t seem to consolidate the roughly two-thirds of Republicans who don’t want Trump to be the nominee,” said Bruce Haynes, a GOP strategist and South Carolina native. “The most important function South Carolina can provide is identifying one candidate who can challenge Donald Trump. That’s what this primary has become—will someone rise up and challenge this man?”
A week ago, Trump landed in New Hampshire facing questions about why he underperformed in Iowa. Trump shrugged them off and bulldozed on. Rubio, meanwhile, had the wind at his back, generating talk that he could potentially catch Trump in New Hampshire, not just finish second.
But his stunning meltdown in Saturday’s GOP debate ended all that, and Rubio staggered to a fifth place finish, a devastating setback for a candidate who seemed on the verge of consolidating support from mainstream Republicans and moving closer to forcing Bush out of the race.
“It’s ended Marco Rubio’s chance to be the Republican nominee in my estimation,” said Steve Schmidt, the GOP strategist who guided John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “If he finishes below his mentor Jeb Bush, the rationale for his candidacy collapses.”
A group of Bush donors had been set to announce they were shifting their support to Rubio as early as Wednesday. But when Bush finished just ahead of Rubio Tuesday night, those donors remain frozen in place at least through South Carolina, a state establishment Republicans continue to hope will provide some clarity.
A number of GOP strategists are increasingly frustrated by the fact that the other Republican candidates have struggled with how to attack Trump—and, in the case of Rubio and, up until January, Ted Cruz, been reluctant to do so at all.
“I think people are just out-thinking themselves,” said Stuart Stevens, who guided Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign. “Donald Trump has votes—go get some of them. I’ve never seen a race with so much effort dedicated to losing. I feel like you’re watching a Super Bowl where people are punting on second down.”
Katie Packer, another veteran of the Romney campaign who is now leading an anti-Trump super PAC that’s spending heavily in the early states, is worried that Republicans are running out of time, especially given his potential strength in a number of southern states that vote on Super Tuesday.
“Trump is by no means a runaway train. There has never been a year like this with so many legit candidates,” Packer said. “And Trump has the highest negatives of any frontrunner in either party—the highest number that actively don't want him. As soon as the race gets down to two he will fall. Needs to happen before March 15.”
John Kasich, by virtue of finishing second in independent-heavy New Hampshire, is heading south too, although he’s not a great fit for South Carolina, which is shaping up to be a four-way fight between candidates who all have inherent advantages there: Rubio’s team has the most experience in the state, Bush has a family connection that dates back decades, Cruz and Trump have appeal to the state’s evangelical and blue collar conservatives—and all four have plenty of money.
Should these four candidates continue to divide the anti-Trump vote in the next several contests, and with Kasich ready to patiently seek delegates in Midwestern states when the primary fight broadens out, it’s possible the ongoing circular firing squad among several establishment candidates ensures that Trump is the last Republican standing—a scenario that only fuels further speculation about a brokered convention.
“I don’t think we’re staring down the barrel of it, but I think it’s rational to write it and think it and begin to talk about it,” Haynes said. “There’s no reason to believe Trump is going away any time soon.
“These primaries will be like the Rocky movies. We’ll continue making them over and over and over.”