The one with no impeachment news


Welcome, readers, for the first Friday OnPolitics since September that doesn’t have any impeachment news.

So, what should we talk about? Well, we had a functioning primary Tuesday night, so cheers to you, New Hampshire. 

It was a good night for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was the favorite coming in. He won the state again, as he did in 2016.  And he’s won the most support in both Iowa and New Hampshire, so he heads into the Nevada caucuses next week with the wind at his back. 

Former mayor Pete Buttigieg had another top-2 showing, too, taking second in New Hampshire. But now, the real tests start to come. Buttigieg’s campaign has struggled to gain significant support among voters of color, and the next two voting states are much more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire. 

The biggest surprise of the night? Sen. Amy Klobuchar finally got the late-surge a lot of politics talkers thought would come in Iowa, and stormed into third place. A strong debate performance ahead of voting gave Klobuchar that Klomentum (I’m sorry), but her next test is scaling up and raising cash. 

So, what about former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, two one-time frontrunners in New Hampshire? They tumbled to fifth and fourth place, respectively. Biden even left the state before polls closed, knowing a defeat was on the horizon.

Biden enjoys a more diverse base of support than Buttigieg or Klobuchar, so he’s looking to South Carolina to come through for him bigly. And while Warren didn’t place in the top 3 in New Hampshire, she still trails only Sanders and Buttigeg in national delegates. She’s pushed the message all week that her campaign is in it for the long haul.

The field also narrowed, with Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick all ending their bids after New Hampshire.

It didn’t take long for Nevada politics to take over from the Granite State, with the powerful Culinary Union offering a warning to their members about the candidates’ health care plans. Sanders’ plan was not viewed positively, and there’s been some back and forth. But the union decided against endorsing ahead of the caucus (Biden and Warren were thought to be in contention for that prize) so that’s good news for Sanders.

Cool, now here’s a quick look at some of the non-2020 things that happened this week.

  • A majority of people think they’re better off today than they were when Donald Trump got elected.
  • Trump might not let aides listen to his phone calls after that one that caused a fair bit of problems for him. You know the one.
  • The Senate passed a bipartisan bill to limit the president’s war powers.
  • And the Roger Stone case has had too many twists and turns to spell out here.

I’ve taken enough of your time. Go enjoy your Friday. — Annah Aschbrenner