What can we learn from the Democratic New Hampshire primary?

Dear Friends,

Last night, Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary in New Hampshire by a landslide (60.3% for Sanders and 38.0% for Clinton) after essentially splitting Iowa (49.9% for Clinton and 49.6% for Sanders), yet in the all important delegate count.  Secretary Clinton reportedly leads with 394 delegates compared to 42 for Senator Sanders.  In the Iowa caucuses, the regular delegates are split according to the percentages 49.9% to 49.6%.  In New Hampshire there are 24 allotted delegates of which 13 (54.2%) to Senator Sanders and 9 (37.5%) to Secretary Clinton with 2 delegates who have not been allotted.  In order to divide the regular delegates in accordance with the popular vote, the 2 delegates who have not been allotted should be allotted to Senator Sanders.  Of the 8 New Hampshire super delegates (party officers and elected officials) 6 are currently committed to Secretary Clinton and 2 are uncommitted.  Consequently after his landslide victory, Bernie Sanders has 13 New Hampshire delegates and Hillary Clinton has 15 delegates.  Reportedly the delegate count after the Iowa caucus (essentially a tie) and the New Hampshire primary (a landslide for Senator Sanders) stands at 394 for Secretary Clinton and 42 for Senator Sanders when you include both regular and super delegates.  The Democratic Party does not have a very democratic system.  It is a system that supports the establishment candidate.  I will probably write more about that another day.

The exit polling for the New Hampshire primary is fascinating and tells us quite a bit about the contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.  I have compiled the following chart that is primarily from The New York Times (here) and where there is an * the information was from ABC News (here).

Question	Answer	Sanders	Clinton
Sex	male	66	32
	female	55	44
	female under 45*	69
	female under 30*	82
Age	18-29	83	16
	30-44	66	32
	45-64	53	45
	65+	44	55
Urban, Suburban,	population over 50,000	57	40
Rural	suburb	58	40
	small city + rural	63	36
Honest + trustworthy	only Clinton	-	-
	only Sanders	95	3
	both	26	73
	neither	-	-
Shares your values	only Clinton	-	-
	only Sanders	97	2
	both of them	48	52
	neither of them	-	-
More important to you	position on issues	66	32
	leadership/personal qualities	44	54
College degree	college graduate	56	43
	no college degree	67	31
Income	under $30,000	71	25
	$30,000 - $49,999	60	38
	$50,000 - $99,999	64	35
	$100,000 - $199,999	55	44
	$200,000 +	46	53
Your political philosophy	very liberal	66	33
	somewhat liberal	57	42
	moderate	58	39
Replace current health	support	70	29
care with single payer	oppose	39	58
Worried about	very/somewhat	56	43
terrorist attack	not too/ not at all	71	29
Worried about	very/somewhat	65	34
direction of economy	not too/not at all	43	57
Independent	yes	72	27
Financial status	getting ahead	53	47
	holding steady	59	39
	falling behind	69	28
Life for next generation	better than today	61	37
	worse than today	70	29
	about the same	48	50
What issues matter	healthcare	54	45
most	economy/jobs	59	38
	terrorism	49	47
	income inequality	70	29
Income tax rates	increase for all	-	-
	increase for over $250,000	59	40
	no increase	-	-
Gun owner	yes	69	28
	no	57	43
When decided on	today	44	48
candidate	last few days	-	-
	sometime last week	-	-
	in last month	70	29
	before that	61	38
Candidate quality that	electability	19	79
matters most	cares about people like me	82	17
	honest + trustworthy	91	5
	right experience	15	85

There are many amazing numbers in this chart.  Here are just a few that I think are important.

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in every demographic category except women over 65 and people with incomes over $200,000.  Senator Sanders did particularly well with younger voters.  In the 18 to 29 category he got 83% of the vote, in the 30 to 44 category it was 66% of the vote and in the 45 to 64 category it was 53% of the vote.  Senator Sanders lost the 65+ category by 44% to 55%.  

Bernie Sanders won the women's vote overall 55% to 44%.  The numbers were even more surprising with younger women voters.  Bernie Sanders got 69% of the women voters under 45 and 82% of the women voters under 30.  Since overall Bernie Sanders got 83% of the voters under 30, there is no difference between between young women and young men voters with respect to their support for Senator Sanders.

Clearly Secretary Clinton has a real problem with respect to how Democratic voters view her honesty and trustworthiness.  None of the voters believed that only Secretary Clinton was trustworthy and none believed that neither of them were trustworthy.  Of the people that said that Senator Sanders was the only trustworthy one 95% were Sanders' voters and 3% of those people that believed that only Senator Sanders was trustworthy were Clinton's supporters.  Of those that believed that both are trustworthy 73% were Clinton's voters and only 26% were Sanders' voters.  On the question of what quality is important to the voters, of those who thought honesty was most important 91% were Sanders' voters and only 5% were Clinton's voters.  

In an interview on Monday night with Rachel Maddow, Secretary Clinton tried to blame the Benghazi issue and the constant attacks by Republicans for the perception that people have that she is not honest.  It is completely implausible that Democratic voters are swayed by the Republican talking points.  Most of Secretary Clinton's problems with her perceived lack of trustworthiness are her own doing.  Most recently, her denial that all the money she has received from Wall Street has no impact on her is so absurd that nobody actually believes it.  She, Bill, their campaigns and their foundation have collected more than $100 million from Wall Street.  She is also refusing to release the tapes of her now infamous three $675,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs.  Her lack of judgment is also apparent from her decision to have her own email server and have her own people decide what she should turn over to the State Department adds to her problems.  I also think her many position changes in response to Senator Sanders' push from the left have hurt her.  The Keystone pipeline was moving quickly through her State Department and then at the end of the day, she says that she is not for it because it is a distraction.  She still doesn't understand that the carbon needs to stay in the ground.  She called the Trans Pacific Partnership the gold standard of trade agreements as she worked it through the government, but when faced with an electorate that is against it she says now that she has seen it, it doesn't meet her standard.  The list goes on.  These issues are not Republican talking points, they are Secretary Clinton's record.

The question about what is more important a candidate's position on the issues or the candidate's leadership and/or personal qualities.  Of those who said that personal qualities are more important 54% were Clinton's supporters and only 32% of those who think that a candidate's position on the issues is more important were Clinton's supporters.  But of those that think that a candidate's position on the issues is most important 66% were Sanders' supporters.  I have felt for a long time that the Sanders campaign is about a movement or as he would say a political revolution and the Clinton campaign is about Secretary Clinton.  She ties everything back to her.  A prime example was in her concession speech last night she tied her opposition to the Citizens United case to the fact that it came out of an attack on her.  I never hear her speak that she does not reference the scars she has, and how hard she has fought, and how people attack her.  All of that is true, but to me it misses the point.  Senator Sanders' message is all about his policies, bettering the lives of the people, taking control of our democracy, etc.  Seldom do you ever hear about Senator Sanders.  Only recently has he talked about his parents and their story.

Senator Sanders has more support than Secretary Clinton across the political spectrum.  As you would assume, he wins easily among those voters that describe themselves as very liberal (66% to 33%), but he also wins among those who describe themselves as somewhat liberal (57% to 42%) and moderates (58% to 39%).  Equally surprising and perhaps most important for the general election, Senator Sanders is overwhelmingly favored by independent voters (72% to 27%).

Secretary Clinton attacks Senator Sanders for a lack of foreign policy experience and knowledge, yet even among those voters who are very or somewhat concerned about a terrorist attack, they support Senator Sanders (56% to 43%).  Even when asked about the most important issues, of those that cite terrorism 49% were Sanders' supporters and 47% were Clinton's supporters.  Based on this data, it doesn't appear that voters are giving Secretary Clinton any more support than Senator Sanders even when it comes to terrorism.  I suspect that most Democratic voters now view Secretary Clinton's vote for the Iraq war as a mistake and perhaps a sign of bad judgment.

Secretary Clinton wins among voters with more than $200,000 of income which probably why of those voters that said that they were very or somewhat worried about the direction of the economy 65% of them were Sanders' supporters and 34% were Clinton's supporters.  Of those that were not too or not at all worried about the direction of the economy 57% were Clinton's supporters.  If you have income over $200,000 and you are not very concerned about the direction of the economy, it is also likely that you are only for incremental changes and are ok with an only slightly changed version of the status quo.  I believe that the vast majority of the country understands that we need significant changes even though change is uncomfortable for those that are doing ok now.

Secretary Clinton's message of incremental change is certainly borne out when the voters were asked about what quality in the person matters most.  Of those who answered electability 79% were Clinton's supporters and 10% were Sanders' supporters, and of those who answered right experience 85% were Clinton's supporters and 15% were Sanders' supporters.  As you would suspect stability and only incremental changes are much more important to older, wealthier voters than to younger voters.

The one area that this data clearly indicates that Senator Sanders needs address is electability.  Certainly this win and the fact that he won virtually all demographic groups should help dramatically to indicate his broad appeal.  The electorate in New Hampshire is much whiter than the general electorate.  Senator Sanders now needs to demonstrate that he can generate support and enthusiasm among black and latino voters.  He will have the opportunity to do just that in the next several weeks.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal