The Polls Are Closed In New Hampshire And Here"s What"s Happening

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This is Ray Mossholder at the Reach More Now news desk in Fort Worth, Texas.

Polls have closed in New Hampshire. Immediately the counting of the votes begins. But exit polls show a win for Donald Trump and for Bernie Sanders. The question simply remains, how badly did Trump beat the other Republican candidates and how badly did Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton.

New Hampshire is a state that has picked champions often – champions who become president. Watch for the top three Republicans still standing. Since 1976, no Republican has gone on to become the Republican candidate for president if they weren’t in the top three in either Iowa or New Hampshire. New Hampshire is known as a state full of last-minute surprises. Independents can vote either Republican or Democrat. In a Monmouth poll that was taken over the weekend, only 49% of the Republicans were absolutely sure who they would be voting for.

The rest of the candidates will all have their eyes on Senator Marco Rubio. They and many other in the news media believe Marco had his worst night of debate late last week. Three times Rubio made the same statement, “President Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. He wants to make America just another country. He is working to bring America down.” Many of the other candidates piled on Rubio for saying that. What will be important tonight is to see what the Republican voters of New Hampshire thought about what he said. Nationally, many Americans agree with what Marco Rubio said.

If Rubio loses big tonight, then the question is which of these three governors will be first above the others when the night is over. If Kasich or Christie are second or third to Jeb Bush, they will most likely drop out of the race probably before South Carolina next week. So watching how these three end up tonight will matter greatly. Bush has a super PAC to keep him going as long as it makes any sense. But neither Kasich nor Christie has such support.

The Democrats w Ho Are Still Hoping for Hillary to Become the First Woman President, Love to Recall That It Was New Hampshire That Made Bill Clinton “the Comeback Kid” even though he came in second. That happened in 1992. And they also like to recall that Hillary defeated Barack Obama in the Granite State. Tonight, if the polls can be trusted at all, it will be a very different story for Hillary. She is poised to lose to Bernie. But even the result of that race will be highly interesting. Hillary even a week ago was as far as 30% from Bernie Sanders, a number for her that would be numbing. So if she loses by far less than that, Bernie’s victory will appear much more narrow even if it’s highly decisive.

On February 20th, South Carolina will hold its primary. Doctor Ben Carson hasn’t even waited around for the votes to be counted tonight. He knows a liberal state like New Hampshire won’t have found much use for him, but a much more Evangelical state like South Carolina certainly may.

Donald Trump again is polling strong in South Carolina. Ted Cruz has spent a lot of time in South Carolina already and it would be surprising if he didn’t do well with the Evangelicals. He is polling well there too.

I have called this race for president “a horserace”. And there is a dark horse pawing the ground with a fortune in many that he doesn’t have to raise the simply remove from the bank. That horse is named Michael Bloomberg and was the former mayor of New York. He doesn’t pose to big a threat to Hillary or Bernie at this point. Only 4% of Americans who were polled said that they would vote for him. But horseraces can change in a heartbeat. Many expect Hillary Clinton to be indicted and forced to drop out of this race. There also continues to be a health issue that could cause her to do the same.

As I’ve been writing this, the polls closed in New Hampshire and here are the initial results with only less 13%:

As expected, the big winners in New Hampshire tonight are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders who have already been declared the winners. John Kasich is second, a long way beyond Trump. Then it’s Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Cris Christie, Carley Fiorina, and Doctor Ben Carson, in that order. Of course, with only 15% of the votes counted everyone except Trump and Sanders could change dramatically.

I’ll be back when all of the votes are then counted.

The Polls Are Closed In New Hampshire And Here"s What"s Happening