Want to know what the NBC News Embeds saw? Follow their daily journey to the inside of the 2016 presidential campaign here:
Jeb Bush winning the race for class president
He may be down in polls of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters, but Jeb Bush is winning the hearts and minds of the state’s fourth-graders.
He’s leading the pack in the survey of New Hampshire’s fourth grade students at the state capitol in Concord. Virginia Drew, director of the State Capitol Visitor’s Center, where the poll is conducted, said he’s been experiencing a recent surge after Donald Trump led late last year.
She also said she’s been hearing Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s name more and more often, when she asks students which candidates they’re familiar with.
Who's winning the fourth grade #fitn Primary vote @ the NH Capitol? Jeb Bush & Hillary Clinton pic.twitter.com/2IWGxDvjUb
— Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) January 22, 2016
“They hear their parents talking about these things, and see it on the news” she said. “We have some of the best-informed fourth graders in the nation.”
In the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders in a landslide, according to Drew.
The poll is unscientific — fourth graders touring the state are offered two ballots, one Democrat and one Republican, with pictures and names of each of the candidates to choose from.
And the survey certainly doesn’t match the rash of scientific surveys done by media outlets and universities of the state’s voters, all of which have shown Trump far and away the primary winner and Bush stuck in the bottom half of the pack. Democratic polls have shown challenger Bernie Sanders opening up a lead on Clinton as well.
But Drew says that in the past, as New Hampshire’s fourth grade students go, so goes the state.
“It’s been accurate every year since we started,” in 2004, she said.
— Alex Jaffe covering the Rubio campaign in New Hampshire
The camera, backpack, tripod, and laptop were a dead giveaway….
With a camera bag, oversized suitcase, tripod and backpack so heavy it makes you hunch over to shoulder the weight, campaign embeds are walking billboards for the campaign-coverage complex.
While checking into a hotel this week, the two employees at the front desk quickly began jaunting over Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump after finding out I cover the 2016 race. The one on the computer pulls up her Facebook page and turns the screen for us to see a less-than-flattering meme featuring the duo.
Wherever we go, the political conversations follow us. While checking bags at the airport on Thursday, the attendant just shook his head. “I don’t even know,” he said, just as mystified by this election as any of the rest of us.
On airplane rides, I hold my camera separately to make sure it’s not damaged in checked baggage, but it naturally dawns a conversation with those sitting nearby.
When I was returning to Des Moines after the New Year, a woman, naturally, pressed me for my analysis of the race. I give some general observations.
She interjected at one point, asking, “What about Jeb Bush? I heard he’s low energy.”









