'Things get spicy' as New Hampshire locks onto 2020 candidates

MANCHESTER, N.H. — A new feeling of urgency hit the voters who greeted the muddled, squabbling, bleary-eyed Democratic presidential field flying into New Hampshire after Iowa’s inconclusive caucus night.

While the candidates did their best to look peppy for the television cameras and small clusters of fans in the airport terminal, the voters they were there to court suddenly faced the surprising opportunity to deliver the first election night verdict of 2020 next week. And in some places, an extra dose of tension was evident.

Two men interrupted Joe Biden’s speech in Nashua, with one yelling: “Answer for the women and children you groped!” before being jeered by Biden supporters and removed. Around the same time on the other side of New Hampshire, a woman stood on a chair feet away from Pete Buttigieg, screaming about his approach to holding fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change in a confrontation that last almost two minutes.

“Things get spicy around primary season,” Buttigieg said to the crowd inside the pizza restaurant with a chuckle, after the woman had been led out by campaign staff.

The former South Bend, Ind., mayor is looking to turn another surprise in New Hampshire after running neck and neck with Bernie Sanders for the top spot in Iowa in the first returns came out there Tuesday night. But Buttigieg is competing on Sanders’ next-door turf without the clear jolt results on Monday night might have given him. Instead, Buttigieg’s surprise results were released just hours before President Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address.

“This is harming his fundraising ability, it’s harming his ability to really put it into a fast, full-gear and build off of this argument that he should be the nominee,” said Scott Spradling, the former political director of WMUR-TV, the state’s leading political news source. “That's where he is wounded. I'm not sure it really hurts Sanders as much.”

That’s because Sanders’ behemoth campaign machine has 150 staffers on the ground, about three times that of any other candidate in the top-tier. The campaign boasts it has more than 10,000 active volunteers willing to make phone calls and knock on doors. While the campaign has gone to great lengths not to talk about it, Sanders has started hiring paid field staffers to bolster their volunteer efforts. The majority of other campaigns only use volunteers and see paying people to do that type work as a faux pas in a state where voters consistently ask candidates how they plan to get money out of politics.

Meanwhile, of the last dozen polls, Sanders placed first in all of them, leading by double digits in two of the last three.

Supporters of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who hoped a surprise top-three placement in Iowa would earn her a second look from New Hampshire, thought the delayed reporting of results hurt her. Andrew Hosmer, the newly-elected mayor of Laconia, a bellwether city where Buttigieg held a rally on Tuesday night, said New Hampshire provided a clean slate for candidates who underperformed in Iowa.

“You saw a Vice President Biden and his team sort of downplaying expectations there, which is, I don't know, not a particularly good sign on the eve of the caucus but now you don't have to worry about perhaps justifying poor numbers coming out of Iowa,” he said. “It hurts some folks — Klobuchar would have overperformed and would come in with a bounce.”

Klobuchar’s success could also depend on how well Biden plays here. The former vice president's schedule for the upcoming week is noticeable lighter than other candidates, as he has flatly said he does not need to win the state. He remains the national frontrunner and the campaign has long expected a significant victory in the South Carolina primary, just over two weeks after New Hampshire.

“Biden’s got a presence,” said state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, one of his earliest backers. “He keeps going, you know, he’s on an even keel. It is what it is.”

Warren’s all-volunteer local campaign is formidable — it is widely regard as the most organized and disciplined. On top of that advantage is the sheer number of one-on-one voter interactions she has had taking tens of thousands of pictures with New Hampshire voters, sometimes staying for hours after an event.

But, amid a months-long struggle to edge past Sanders in the polls, the Warren campaign recently released a memo arguing that New Hampshire is not a must-win and explaining their strategy to compete past the early-voting states. Despite that, local political observers think she needs to track near Sanders to make a viable argument that she can represent the liberal-wing of the party.

Beyond the top five, it’s do-or-die time for some of the lesser-known candidates who have bet it all on New Hampshire.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick have all but moved to New Hampshire. They all remained in the state while other campaigns were in Iowa, hoping to gain attention from voters for their fledgling efforts.

Bennet made a commitment to hold 50 town halls before the primary wraps up and openly admits he needs to do well to keep his campaign alive.

“I’ve made it clear that my flag is planted in New Hampshire, and I need to do well enough in the primary next week to have the momentum and the money to go into South Carolina, Nevada and Super Tuesday,” Bennet said.

Patrick rented a full-sized bus with his campaign logo on it, using it to visit Rotary club meetings, senior centers and small-town Democratic Party meetings.

Gabbard has essentially embedded herself here, renting a vacation home and essentially just dropping into public places or events. On the night of the Iowa caucuses, a POLITICO reporter found Gabbard at the head of a table at a local board game bar, playing a trivia game about America.

“We’re maximizing every single day of the last eight days we have in this campaign in New Hampshire and continuing what we have been doing, literally going town by town,” Gabbard said in between turns, adding that she planned to hop a flight to South Carolina the day after the primary.