Bernie Sanders Won The New Hampshire Primary — Thanks In Part To Youth Voters

Polls closed on Tuesday (February 11) in New Hampshire, and delegates are beginning to add up. With 87 percent reporting, according to the Associated Press, Sen. Bernie Sanders came out of the state's primary election because the leader, with 25.7 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Mayor Pete Buttigieg who garnered 24.4 percent of the vote and Sen. Amy Klobuchar who acquired 19.8 percent of the vote. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden lagged in back of, with 9.3 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively. President Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, as expected.


"Thank you to the thousands of volunteers in New Hampshire who knocked on doors in the rain, the snow and the cold," Sanders tweeted in response to his win. "Your hard work is the reason that we won tonight." As the Daily Beast announced, Sanders volunteers knocked on an estimated 150,000 doors on Saturday (February 8) alone.


Turnout in the primary surpassed that of 2016’s Democratic primary, according to NBC News, and currently stands close to eclipsing that of 2008. The young vote also played a key role — and it's been a long time coming. Sunrise Movement, an audience of mostly youth activists fighting the climate crisis, spent three years organizing in New Hampshire to boost youth turnout by six percent in both the Democratic primary and in the 2020 presidential election, according to The Intercept. The activists argued that six percent could be enough to nominate and elect a progressive president; the sort formally endorsed Sanders in January. And, according to exit polls by both NBC News and the Washington Post, Sanders handily won voters aged 18 to 29 in the state on Tuesday night.


New Hampshire holds 24 delegates, each of which will be given proportionally to candidates who make the 15 percent threshold – that shows only Sanders, Buttigieg and Klobuchar will receive any delegates from the state, with nine, nine, and six, politely. In Iowa, Buttigieg was awarded 14 delegates, Sanders won 12, Warren took house 8, Biden acquired six, and Klobuchar procured one, the Iowa Democratic Party told NBC News. In mixture with the New Hampshire primaries, Burrigieg is currently in the lead with 23 delegates, followed by Sanders with 21, Warren with 8, Klobuchar with 7, and Biden with 6, Business Insider reports. It takes 1,991 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.


Shortly soon following the polls closed, two candidates who performed poorly dropped out of the race altogether: philanthropist Andrew Yang and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO). The latter received just 0.3 percent of the vote with one-fifth of precincts reporting in New Hampshire at the time he dropped out. Yang, who also didn't receive a solitary delegate from either Iowa or New Hampshire, said, “I am the math guy, and it’s clear from the numbers we’re not going to win this campaign,” according to the New York Times. “So tonight I’m announcing that I am suspending my campaign.”