The fallout from Tuesday evening’s New Hampshire primaries runs far and wide. Two GOP candidates, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina, have already dropped out of the race. Ben Carson isn’t out yet (in fact, he plans to stick around through Super Tuesday), but his poll numbers suggest he’s fighting more than a losing battle. The winner, Donald Trump, has shown that a political outsider can go far in a presidential primary. He nabbed 35 percent votes and still has a ways to go, but people are starting to realize Trump could take a nomination. And so could another political outsider.
Bernie Sanders‘ 60 percent victory over Hillary Clinton has resonated. This outcome — which was a far cry from the Iowa virtual tie and coin tosses — was followed by passionate speeches from both candidates, but Sanders’ rousing tribute to the people crashed his website. In fact, many who tried to access BernieSanders.com on Tuesday night met a 404 page. His donations went higher than simply “feeling the Bern” jokes would indicate.
Sanders, who sank some hoops and inspired a meme in the hours following his victory, not-so-quietly raked in $5.2 million after the polls closed. Part of that huge response was Sanders’ speech request — “Please help us raise the funds we need, whether it’s 10 bucks, 20 bucks, or 50 bucks” — but there’s no denying his influence on voters:
The response was so overwhelming that his website buckled under the traffic. Between the close of polls and mid-afternoon Wednesday, his campaign brought in a record $5.2 million. Sanders is barreling out of New Hampshire in a position few anticipated when he first entered the 2016 White House contest: financially competitive with Hillary Clinton.
This year, the Vermont senator has received donations at a much faster rate than Clinton. She bested him in 2015 with $114.4 million to his $74.9 million, but he’s gaining on her. If Sanders’ donation pace continues, he’ll likely catch up to Clinton in the coming weeks, just in time for “Super Tuesday” on March 1. Sanders has struck a chord (this includes a rush of young women). He may be a political outsider, but he’s a true contender.
(Via Washington Post)