By The Staff | The Save Jersey Blog
UPDATE: 10:42PM
Governor Christie has announced to supporters in New Hampshire that he and his family will head home to New Jersey tonight to contemplate the final results in the New Hampshire primary and determine whether there is a path forward for his campaign.
As we previously reported, Christie is a lock for 6th place and currently holds approximately 7.6% of the vote with 70% of precincts reporting. We expect that after this overnight huddle the Governor will make an announcement tomorrow whether he intends to suspend his campaign or push forward to South Carolina.
UPDATE: 10:02PM
It is now clear that Governor Christie will finish in a disappointing 6th place in the New Hampshire primary. With 47% of precincts reporting, the Governor stands at 8% of the vote statewide, coming in with double the support of Carly Fiorina who has finished in a distant 7th.
It is unclear where Governor Christie can go from here. He spent significant funds and spent even more significant time in New Hampshire, organizing more town hall meetings than most of his Republican rivals. The argument to donors that Chris Christie is the viable Trump alternative when candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich are gathering up significantly more votes and delegates will likely be a hard one to make. Tomorrow should be a very interesting day for the Christie campaign.
The current order: Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Christie, Fiorina, Carson, Other, Gilmore.
UPDATE: 9:45PM
Bernie Sanders is about half way through his broken record victory speech, which began just minutes after Hillary Clinton gave a concession speech where she admitted that she has a lot of work to do among anyone under the age of 65 in her party, even women.
Exit polling has indicated that the only age group Clinton carried was 65+, and the only income group she won were those who make over $200,000 per year.
On the Republican side the horse race has been in a locked position since our last update. Kasich has solidified his second place finish and neither Cruz nor Bush, who are essentially tied, are going to catch him. Rubio is less than 900 votes behind Bush in a close 5th place. Christie is stuck in 6th trailing Rubio by over 2,400 votes. The rest of the candidate are non factors in this primary, or likely any other primaries going forward.
However, in a positive turn of events for Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon turned Presidential candidate is now finally beating “Other” as an option in New Hampshire by a whopping .4 percent!
The current order: Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Christie, Fiorina, Carson, Other, Gilmore.
UPDATE: 8:45PM
Marco Rubio is currently sitting in 5th place with roughly 900 more votes than Chris Christie, who is solidly in 6th place (Fiorina and Carson have no chance to catch up – Fun Fact: Carson currently has less votes than “Other” statewide). Rubio is trailing Jeb Bush by about 600 votes.
Rubio has been seriously damaged all weekend at the hands of Governor Christie, who has painted the Senator as a polished robot of a candidate. Exit polling is showing that the debate on Saturday played a significant role in today’s vote. However, any support that a formerly rising Rubio may have lost does not seem to have benefited Chris Christie, and if it has, its scary to think where our Governor would have been without those attacks on arguably the most general-election-electable candidate in the field.
The current order: Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Christie, Fiorina, Other, Carson, Gilmore.
UPDATE: 8:18PM
John Kasich, who has essentially staked his entire campaign on a solid finish in New Hampshire, is performing very well and currently holds approximately 16% for second place. All indications are that Kasich will hold his second place position or drop to a close third at worst. With less than $3 million cash on hand as of this morning, this high finish was very important to the Kasich campaign.
It appears that for the second time in a week, Governor Christie will perform worse than all of the other mainstream governor candidates in this primary race. Yeah, he beat Jim Gilmore, but Vermin Supreme likely would have beaten Gilmore if he were on the Republican ballot. There will be major speculation throughout the night as to whether Governor Christie will continue on in this race, especially if he does not break that arbitrary 10% threshold. Christie has already announced a preliminary South Carolina schedule, but that may end up being nothing more than a PR stunt to avoid any Carson-esque missteps before the polls closed.
Save Jersey’s non-scientific online poll shows that most of you feel that Christie will suspend his campaign after a poor showing tonight (if you haven’t cast your vote yet what are you waiting for?)
UPDATE: 8:00PM
Polls have just closed in almost every county in New Hampshire. Reports are that some polling stations with unusually high turnout have been given the OK to remain open to allow those in line to vote.
Save Jersey can now project that Donal Trump (Populist – NY) and Bernie Sanders (Socialist – VT) have come in first place in their respective primary contests. Honestly, Save Jersey would have been comfortable projecting that a week ago. As the votes roll in on the Republican side, the horse race between those in the “establishment lane” and Ted Cruz is the real story worth watching tonight.
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The moment of truth has arrived, Save Jerseyans.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie‘s presidential campaign might not make it past tonight if he doesn’t defy expectations and break into the ‘top tier’ (or at least win the so-called ‘governor’s lane’ of candidates).
Anything short of a post-debate strong second place comeback by Marco Rubio could keep the primary cycle chugging straight into the spring season (or longer). Trump-Cruz-Rubio-Kasich-Bush-Christie, for example? In that order? With Trump under 30 again? We could be headed to the convention…
Our Blogger-in-Chief @MattRooneyNJ and Managing Editor @McGovernBrian will be live-tweeting results, analysis and snark; you can also watch our @SaveJersey live feed:
Some other useful links:
*** WMUR-9 ABC has live results – An interactive map, vote totals and delegate counts (here)
*** VOTE in our online poll – How do you think Chris Christie will finish the night? (here)
*** Historical Election Results – Take a look at how past candidates performed at the N.H. Secretary of State’s Elections Division page (here)
*** New Hampshire Polling – Revisit the data before we get our hands on the only results that truly matter (here)
*** Election 2016 Archives – There isn’t a site in New Jersey that covers elections better! Check out our news, analysis, and humorous musings to-date (here)
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DUMMY SHEEP. DOOOO U REALLY THINK DUMMY BERNIE WILL GIVE U THE KEYS TO THE STORE( money) like he said. ZZZZZZ GOOOO BACK TO SLEEP DUMMY SHEEP.
Results are as I expected just hope Jeb pulls it out for 3rd place
Maybe now the media establishment will stop trying to pump up Rubio. They talked him up after his third place finish in Iowa, said he was ‘surging’ in NH and he finished 5th. And it’s time for Christie to quit the race and – I hope – give up his dreams of being another guy who makes his whole career on a taxpayer salary. Get a job.