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Behind the scenes at the Democratic debate
DURHAM, N.H. – In the final moments before they took the stage, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each wanted a moment alone to get centered for their first one-on-one debate encounter.
They did not speak to each other and strode silently to their marks offstage before walking out to their respective podiums. Within minutes, sparks were flying.
We’re not in Iowa anymore…
New Hampshire sure isn’t Iowa.
Let’s just say the folks out here have a different style to them – a more brash, direct, we-mean-business attitude. Don’t take this wrong, New Hampshire – it’s just quite a different feel for this reporter, who spent the last six months out in the open skies of Iowa.
Ted Cruz’s charter plane flew into New England overnight following Monday’s caucus. Cruz has had ten events since. And the New Hampshire voter is a little more blunt in their assessments of candidates.
“Trump needs to go away. Trump needs to go away,” Jan Forsberg, a Republican, told me on Thursday night. “We don’t need a bully in the White House. No. He will lose.”
You ask for an opinion – you’re going to get one in New Hampshire.
Then on Friday morning, after a pit stop at the downtown Manchester post office, I happened to walk by some young high school students standing amidst the more than seven inches of snow already fallen in the Granite State that morning.
With the snow continuing to fall, the students began making snowballs. They were standing outside the windows of Donald Trump’s state headquarters, where about two dozen folks were hurriedly involved in tasks inside.
It was clear where the direction of their snowballs were headed – I pulled out my phone for the moment.
While walking by pic.twitter.com/vLCaXFJTvo
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) February 5, 2016
— Vaughn Hillyard covering the Cruz campaign
Leave the mothers out of this…. Jeb Bush is throwing some Twitter shade at Donald Trump for getting snowed out of New Hampshire on Friday and canceling a campaign event. Bush tweeted a photo of his 90-year-old former First Lady mother campaigning at a restaurant this morning in New Hampshire. .@realDonaldTrump My 90 year old mother made it out to campaign. She met Destiny, age 5. pic.twitter.com/Xue8HwpTS3 Record-breaking predictions CONCORD, N.H. — Despite more snow headed this way, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicts “record” turnout for this Tuesday’s presidential primary. “I expect that the turnout of this presidential primary will break a record of the number of votes cast,” he told reporters in his office Friday. “I thought that in 2008 we might not see anything like that for a while because that was such an incredible turnout but I think that this one will actually exceed that.” He predicts that there will be a total of about 550,000 votes cast on Tuesday – more than the 529,000 cast in 2008. He also thinks more ballots will be cast for Republicans than Democrats: 282,000 for GOP candidates and 268,000 for Democrats. New Hampshire has historically had the highest or second-highest presidential primary turnout rate in the country. If vote totals meet Gardner’s predictions, then 62 percent of registered voters (but just 55 percent of people of voting age) would participate. More on primary day turnout predictions here. — Kailani Koenig covering the New Hampshire primary This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
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