Trump and Sanders Dominate New Hampshire Primary

Date: February 11, 2016 Last Edit: February 16, 2016

The two presidential candidates soared—and their victory speeches, not surprisingly, had small business implications.

One thing is clear after the New Hampshire primary: The fight for both the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination is going to be long and tumultuous—all thanks to once long-shot political outsiders. 

Bernie Sanders received a staggering 60 percent of the votes in New Hampshire, dwarfing the few tenths of 1 percent by which Hillary Clinton prevailed in the Iowa caucuses last week.

DON’T MISS A BEAT: Follow NFIB’s campaign coverage for the latest on what all this means for small business owners.

In his victory speech, the Vermont senator focused on putting Wall Street in its place and giving America back to the middle class. Sanders also touched on a couple of his other major talking points—minimum wage and healthcare:

  • “Together we are going to create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent. And, when millions of our people are working for starvation wages, yep, we’re going to raise the minimum wage to $15 bucks an hour.”
  • “It makes no sense that as a nation we continue to spend far, far more per capita than do the people of any other nation, all of whom guarantee healthcare to all of their people. That is why I believe in a Medicare for all, single-payer program which will not only guarantee healthcare for all, but will save the average middle class family thousands of dollars a year in healthcare costs.” 

Sanders also predicted his race against Hillary Clinton would quickly become more contentious: “They are throwing everything at me except the kitchen sink, and I have the feeling that the kitchen sink is coming pretty soon as well,” Sanders said.

With some 35 percent of the votes, Donald Trump triumphed in the most dominating Republican primary victory in New Hampshire in 16 years, gaining at least 29 percent of the vote in the state’s 10 counties. 

The businessman touted some of his favorite subjects in his victory speech, like building a wall to prevent illegal immigration, in addition to business issues such as improving employment rates and repealing Obamacare:

  • “It is a total disaster. We’re repealing and replacing Obamacare. It’s gone.”
  • “Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent. Do you think we’d have gatherings like this if we had—if we had 5 percent unemployment, do you really think we’d have these gatherings?” 

Sanders’ and Trump’s victories are a culmination of America’s disillusionment with the political establishment, according to CNN’s senior enterprise reporter, Stephen Collinson. 

“Their victories reflect deep bipartisan anger at professional politicians and suggest that both the Democratic and Republican races will now be long, acrimonious struggles that could stretch well into the spring,” he said.

New Hampshire ended quite dismally for Chris Christie. After finishing sixth in The Granite State, the New Jersey governor formally suspended his campaign. Carly Fiorina announced that she, too, will suspend her campaign

*Note: This news coverage does not equate to an endorsement of any candidate by NFIB.

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