Bernie Sanders Wins in New Hampshire with Pete Buttigieg in Close Second as More Candidates Drop Out

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, multiple news outlets declared, with former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg a very close second — and, essentially, tied for first.

That same night, Democratic candidates Andrew Yang, a businessman, and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet both announced they were leaving the race after disappointing showings.

Former Vice President Joe Biden continued his middling streak with what looked to be a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire after coming in fourth in last week’s Iowa caucus.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who came in fourth in Iowa, jumped to third in New Hampshire while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren fell from third in Iowa to fourth in New Hampshire.

Biden, who for months had polled ahead of his many Democratic challengers, now rests his campaign hopes on what his team has described as the larger and more diverse voting bodies in Nevada and South Carolina where, they say, his support lies.

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As of late Tuesday, Sanders had about 25.7 percent of the vote and Buttigieg had about 24.4 percent — with some 3,500 votes separating them.

However, they were tied in the number of delegates each would receive at the national party convention this summer, where the presidential nominee will be chosen.

Klobuchar earned about 20 percent of the vote; Warren got about 9.5 percent and Biden got about 8.5 percent as of the results late Tuesday, with more than 85 percent of the vote in but some precincts still not counted.

(In what amounted to a formality, President Donald Trump overwhelmingly won New Hampshire’s Republican primary.)

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“Our victory tonight is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Sanders, 78, tweeted Tuesday.

“What we have done together here is nothing short of the beginning of a political revolution,” he wrote — echoing a key part of his campaign promise to voters: that he is the vanguard of progressive change needed in America, which conservatives including Trump have happily dismissed as unwanted socialism. (Sanders, an independent, is a democratic socialist who votes with Democrats in Congress but has also, since 2016, chosen to run for their party’s presidential nomination.)

On Twitter as well, Buttigieg took subtle shots at Sanders and touted his own kind of victory, writing, “We go forward knowing that this is our chance—our only chance—not just to end the era of Donald Trump, but to launch the era that must come next.”

Last week, both Sanders and Buttigieg claimed victory in the disputed Iowa caucus, which saw disastrous issues in the ballot-counting delay the results for days. Buttigieg emerged with a razor-thin delegate lead, though both campaigns called for a recanvass of the results, according to CNN.

In Iowa, Sanders pointed out that he had earned a few thousand more votes than Buttigieg.

The Democratic Party will make its pick for presidential nominee this summer in Milwaukee at the Democratic National Convention in mid-July.

Sanders missed out on the Democratic Party’s 2016 nomination after he received 43 percent of the vote in the national primary. The party’s eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton, received 55 percent of the primary vote, fending off Sanders’ surprisingly strong showing. She narrowly lost to Trump that November.

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“We’re taking on not just the whole Republican political establishment,” Sanders said at a campaign event over the weekend, according to The Washington Post. “We’re taking on the Democratic establishment.”

The race continues with the candidates heading to Nevada for the state’s caucus on Feb. 22.

The remaining candidates will hold a debate in Las Vegas three days ahead of the Nevada caucus, while there will also be another debate on Feb. 25 ahead of the Feb. 29 South Carolina primary which follows Nevada.