Hillary Clinton's surprise win

The bounce back

Reuters
RARELY have pollsters and pundits been so wrong. Riding a wave of momentum from the Iowa caucuses, which he came from behind to win, Barack Obama had every reason to expect a second victory over Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday January 8th. Almost every poll showed him in the lead, and some gave him a double-digit advantage over Mrs Clinton. But the famously ornery voters of New Hampshire reminded the chattering class that it is the ballot-boxes that matter.

Mrs Clinton won a narrow victory—with just 39% to Mr Obama's 36%, or a difference of about 7,000 votes. She had long been the front-runner in the state, before Mr Obama's Iowa momentum pushed him ahead of her in polls. But no matter: the narrative is now one of a scrappy comeback for Mrs Clinton.

What accounts for the turnaround, and the polls' awful predictive ability? One is that in New Hampshire independents can vote in either primary. More than expected may have voted in the Republican primary; perhaps they thought Mr Obama had the Democratic vote locked up. (Mr Obama does much better than Mrs Clinton among Republicans and independents.) Women also voted heavily for Mrs Clinton, in contrast to female voters in Iowa. Perhaps a moment of emotion, when she almost cried on Monday while answering a question about the stresses of the campaign, made her seem more human to women. And Bill Clinton's efforts, in which he angrily said that the media had unfairly scrutinised his wife while going easy on Mr Obama, could have resonated with New Hampshire voters who don't like being told for whom to vote by journalists.

The race now moves to Nevada and South Carolina. John Edwards finished third in New Hampshire, as expected, and plans to continue fighting. His hopes now depend more than ever on South Carolina, which borders his native North Carolina. But Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton will still take most of the limelight: he among the states with large black populations, in particular, who were enthused by his victory in snow-white Iowa. Polls give her a lead in Nevada. Both will then pour money into “Super Tuesday”, when almost half the states in the country vote, on February 5th.

The Republican primary did not defy the polls. But it nonetheless provides a fascinating story ahead of the South Carolina contest, and the February 5th states. John McCain repeated his 2000 victory in New Hampshire, with 37% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 32% and Mike Huckabee's 11%. In 2000, Mr McCain was ground down soon after by George Bush's powerful Republican establishment machine. But this time, the machine has no candidate. And so the race remains open.

Mr McCain remains loathed by many at the top of the party, for voting against George Bush's tax cuts, for campaign-finance reform and, more recently, for co-writing a bill that would help illegal immigrants gain American citizenship. So while New Hampshire's unusual voters pulled him through, his path to the nomination is far from clear. Mr Huckabee will hope to reprise his Iowa win in South Carolina, which like Iowa is full of religious Republicans.

But these two are not the only ones still in the race. Mitt Romney came second in both states, and won a small and little-watched vote in Wyoming. He can plausibly claim to be the only candidate who is acceptable to both religious and economic conservatives and has a broad geographic appeal: he has taken first or second in a mid-western, north-eastern and mountain state so far, and many polls put him second in South Carolina too. Repeatedly taking second place is not the most dramatic way to win, but as polarising figures such as Mr McCain and Mr Huckabee pull the party this way and that, everyone's second favourite may yet have a chance.

Mr Romney loosened up after his secondplace in Iowa, and many thought he won two debates held over the weekend before New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani is also hoping for a late surge; polls still show him in the lead in Florida, the biggest state to vote before February 5th, and he still has nationwide appeal, although social conservatives distrust him.

Four men plausibly have a shot in the Republican race. The Democrats will almost certainly nominate either the first black or the first woman to a big-party ticket, after a see-saw race. An irony is that this year's front-loaded primary schedule, in which many contests were stacked early and back-to-back, was supposed to make it easier for an establishment candidate to wrap up a nomination and prepare for the general election. The Republican and Democratic bigwigs who dreamed up this scenario never had anything like 2008's race in mind.