Whelp, it looks like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters have a little more wind in their sails as of Tuesday night, given his defeat of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic establishment favorite, in the New Hampshire primary.
On the GOP side, billionaire Donald Trump took first with 34 percent of the vote and Ohio Governor John Kasich took 16 percent.
Three Republicans battled it out for third: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Sanders, who beat Clinton 59-38 percent, gave Trump a gentle ribbing in his victory speech.
“And tonight, with what appears to be a record breaking voter turnout…because of a 'yuge' voter turnout — and I say yuuuge! — we won," Sanders said, referring to Trump's caricature-esque New York City accent as well as his tendency to stress bigness of things. "Because we harnessed the energy and the excitement that the Democratic party will need to succeed in November.”
Sanders went on to tout his platform, from fighting ISIS "in a way that does not put our young men and women in the military into the perpetual warfare that is the quagmire in the Middle East" to pushing for a $15 minimum wage to campaign finance reform.
Clinton, who beat him by a hair last week in the Iowa caucus, had given her concession speech minutes earlier.
"I don't know what we'd have done tonight if we had actually won," she said to an enthused crowd of supporters. "This is an exciting event."
She reminded her audience that the campaign finance reform Sanders is calling for (which she also supports) deals largely with reversing the U.S. Supreme Court's notorious Citizens United decision that in 2010 paved the way for Super PACs and dark money in elections, a case that involved a right-wing group that was attacking her.
Observers have said Clinton should see better outcomes in upcoming primaries and caucuses, many of which are in states with Democratic populations that are more moderate.
"Now we take this campaign to the entire country. We're going to fight for every vote in every state," she said. "We're going to fight for real solutions that make a real difference in people's lives."
Trump, who comes to Tampa to rally at the USF Sun Dome on Friday, entertained his supporters with his usual braggadocio.
“I am going to be the greatest jobs president that God ever created,” he said. “We are going to make our country so strong."
No one was too surprised about Trump's New Hampshire win, even if coming in second in Iowa knocked his confidence some. Kasich's second place win, however, was not as expected. Kasich, who seemed to espouse the most moderate platform of all his opponents at GOP debates, said staying positive (rather than attacking the competition) was key.
“Something big happened tonight," he said. "Let me tell you what it is. Let me tell you what it is. We have had tens and tens of millions of dollars spent against us with negative advertising, okay? We have. We've had tens of millions…See, that's the old politics, that's the old politics. We never went negative because we have more good to sell than to spend our time being critical of somebody else.”
He then thanked his supporters in a manner reminiscent of Oprah.
“You made this happen! You made this happen. You made this happen," he said, enthusiastically pointing around the room at random supporters each time he repeated the sentence.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Rubio's fifth-place showing. He had won third in Iowa behind Cruz and Trump, a promising outcome he treated like a first-place win.
But then he screwed up during a Saturday night debate by repeating the same tired phrase despite being called out for his repetitive campaign rhetoric, which caused detractors to call him a robot. Rubio said he blamed his poor showing on the events of Saturday night.
“I did not do well on Saturday night, so, listen to this, that will never happen again," Rubio told his supporters. "That will never happen again.”
The candidates are now off to Nevada and South Carolina, where Democrats and Republicans have their respective caucuses Feb. 20.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2016.