MANCHESTER, N.H. _ Democrats' hopes that New Hampshire voters might bring clarity to the chaotic fight for their party's presidential nomination were fading Monday as the state's primary election neared, with the wide swath of voters seeking a moderate candidate continuing to resist coalescing behind any one contender.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders seems to be solidifying his support among voters on the party's left, boxing out Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, according to multiple polls of the state's voters, but the battle among centrists to leave New Hampshire as the clear alternative to him appears likely to continue long after candidates exit the state.
"This is just getting started," former Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview Monday on CBS' "This Morning."
Biden's plunge in support in the days leading up to Tuesday's primary here has left the moderate lane wide open to other candidates, but he has sought to downplay the importance of New Hampshire and its heavily white electorate.
"Nothing is going to happen until we get to a place _ and around the country _ where there is much more diversity," he said.
Amid Democrats' continued uncertainty about their choices, President Donald Trump plans to bring his post-impeachment victory lap to the state, seeking to troll the opposition with a rally scheduled for Monday night.
"Want to shake up the Dems a little bit _ they have a really boring deal going on," Trump wrote on Twitter, in a post that jibed at the Democratic candidates and their Iowa caucuses meltdown of last week. "Still waiting for the Iowa results, votes were fried."
Trump narrowly lost this state in the 2016 election, and his campaign has targeted it as one that potentially could be flipped in 2020 and whose four electoral votes could make the difference in a close race. The night before his arrival, Trump's supporters began pitching tents outside the arena where he is scheduled to speak. That enthusiasm contrasted with the anxiety pervading Democratic ranks.
Centrist Democrats here have been bouncing among a cluster of candidates. Many have gravitated toward former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, but tracking polls suggest his momentum may have stalled over the weekend as his rivals pounded away at him, with Biden in particular questioning his experience and fitness for office.
Over the weekend, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota moved into position for a strong showing. Two tracking polls of the state's voters have shown her edging into a possible third place behind Buttigieg and Sanders.
"We can't be sure because tracking polls are a quick snapshot of where voters are," said David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Institute, which runs one of the surveys. "Is it a spike that will come back down or is it a continuation?"
At a rally Monday morning in Plymouth, a small city in central New Hampshire, Buttigieg did not mention Klobuchar, but continued his recent criticism of Sanders, saying that while "I respect his intentions," the Vermont senator was making promises he would be unable to keep without tax increases on the middle class.
"Look at Senator Sanders' math _ $25 trillion worth of revenue" over the next 10 years, much of it in new taxes to pay for healthcare, Buttigieg said. Some of those taxes, including higher levies on the wealthiest Americans, "we can agree on," he said.
"But here's the problem, there's $50 trillion worth of spending. So about half of it is unaccounted for, and there's no explanation for where the other $25 trillion is supposed to come from."
"Are we going to pay for it in the form of still further taxes? Or are we going to pay for it in the form of broken promises?"
An American majority exists for major, progressive change, he said, but not "if we take it all the way to the extreme."
Sanders has said in interviews that he does not believe voters expect him to lay out a complete accounting of taxes and spending at this stage of the campaign.
Klobuchar has also criticized Sanders, and in an interview Monday morning on MSNBC, she credited the concerns she raised at Friday's debate about a ticket being led by a self-identified democratic socialist for helping spur her recent rise in polls.
"That launched a thought process, and a lot of voters' heads were like, 'Let me look at her,'" she said.
A key to the result for both Buttigieg and Klobuchar likely will be the preferences of independent voters, who are allowed to participate in the Democratic primary here.
Non-party voters likely will make up more than 40% of the turnout in Tuesday's election. In 2016, independents delivered the lion's share of their votes to Sanders as he competed against Hillary Clinton, who was the choice of establishment Democrats.
Many of the state's independent voters, however, are politically moderate. Biden has little support among them, and if they swing heavily behind either Buttigieg or Klobuchar, they could have a major impact. They also tend to be late deciders.
Like Buttigieg, Klobuchar has roots in the industrial Midwest, which the Democrats need to win back. But unlike him, Klobuchar argues, she has a track record of winning statewide elections and deal making in Congress.
She has worked feverishly to contrast herself with the former mayor, hoping to appeal to the many votes who like his message but are concerned about the 38-year-old's lack of experience.
"I have won in rural areas, suburban areas, and every single congressional district, every single time," Klobuchar said. "He does not bring those receipts."
What Buttigieg has brought is big crowds to his events, rivaling those of Sanders, as well as a political agility and resilience that impresses many voters.
Some 5,000 people turned out to Buttigieg events across the state Sunday. His well-disciplined and well-funded campaign machine was out in force knocking on doors, enlisting voters to show up at the polls.
The fluidity of the race added urgency to the pitches of candidates as they lumbered through Monday's wintry mix of snow and rain to reach as many voters as they could. They made their way from canvass launches in the affluent Boston suburbs on the seacoast to town halls on bucolic colleges campuses and through the economically distressed communities in the long-ago manufacturing hub of Manchester.
The frenzy of activity once again revealed why Sanders remains such a force in his neighboring state and nationwide. The 78-year-old avoids taking questions and limits his interaction with voters, sticking to talking points he has echoed for years. But his events are consistently packed. And voters who show up at them tend not to be wavering or candidate shopping. They are all in for Sanders.
They fuel a campaign infrastructure that is unmatched in New Hampshire. The campaign says its volunteers and staff knocked on 150,000 doors Saturday alone, reaching one out of every five voters in the state. Sanders campaign volunteers have visited more than 700,000 households this election cycle, the campaign says.
Sanders' closing rally Monday night is scheduled to feature the Strokes and a progressive crowd favorite, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. The audience is likely to be huge.
"We have an unprecedented grassroots movement, which is what you need to defeat Trump," Sanders said at a rally in Manchester on Monday morning. "We have raised more campaign contributions from more people ... than any candidate in the history of the United States of America."
But any path to the nomination for Sanders still relies on expanding his support beyond the large group of Bernie die-hards. New Hampshire will test how effectively he can do that. That was a point Ocasio-Cortez emphasized as she dialed in to a call with Sanders campaign volunteers Sunday night.
"The name of the game here is electorate expansion and bringing people out to vote that the normal political establishment counts on not turning out," she said, according to a partial transcript of the call released by the campaign.
"The political establishment counts on young people not turning out, on working class people, poor people, people working two jobs _ they rely and they predict that we don't turn out. So that when we do, we completely upend politics as usual and change the game."
