People.com Celebrity Is Hillary in Trouble After Losing New Hampshire, the Clinton 'Comeback' State? "Bernie Sanders was right: This was YUGE," one political expert says of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire loss By Tierney McAfee Published on February 10, 2016 06:10 PM Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: John Locher/AP Hillary Clinton suffered a devastating 22-point defeat to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Although Sanders was long heavily favored to win in the state that neighbors his home turf in Vermont, the stunning margin of Clinton’s loss – the biggest in a contested New Hampshire Democratic primary in decades, according to Politico – has many wondering how this will affect her campaign in the long run. Is this, as Sanders put it, the start of a political revolution – and the beginning of the end for Clinton’s second White House bid? Political Experts Weigh In Politico put this question to top political experts, with varying responses. Robert M. Shrum, professor of the practice of political science at University of Southern California, and a former Democratic strategist, speechwriter and media consultant, concludes: “Bernie Sanders was right: This was YUGE. And not just the turnout and the margin for him. Hillary Clinton is still the favorite, but for sure this is now a real campaign,” he says of Sanders. So how can she fix the problem? “Her challenge is to convey a sense of vision that reaches people’s hearts as well as heads,” Shrum says, “and convinces them in human terms that their lives and hopes will be different if she – and they – win this election Clinton can rise to this standard. She was a superb, engaging, motivating candidate in the latter days of her 2008 effort, when she could no longer be nominated. That Clinton needs to re-emerge. And that more than anything else will make her authentic.” Beth Myers, Republican political consultant and lawyer, and former adviser to Mitt Romney, has less faith in Clinton’s ability to bounce back after New Hampshire. “Hillary Clinton is in big trouble. She survived a squeaker in Iowa, but suffered a shellacking in New Hampshire. Every Democrat under 30 is feeling the Bern. Her dishonesty over her email server has turned into a legal problem that keeps bubbling and bubbling and bubbling. She’s a Wall Street candidate running in an anti-establishment election cycle, delivering a muddled message to an electorate looking for clarity of vision.” “Dark clouds remain on the Clinton horizon: The candidate striving to be the first woman U.S. president actually lost women by 11 points in New Hampshire.” Brent Colburn, fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, former assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs and national communications director for Barack Obama‘s 2012 campaign, says that “Tuesday night’s loss is not defining for the Clinton campaign.” “Tuesday was a good night for Bernie Sanders and a hard night for the Clinton camp, but the important question is: What truth are these two campaigns waking up to in the morning? The truth that the Sanders campaign won’t want to face is that Tuesday’s results don’t fundamentally change the dynamic of the Democratic race. We woke up Tuesday morning knowing that Sanders would win in New Hampshire and that the real test will be his ability to replicate that success in more diverse states like South Carolina and Nevada. We went to bed knowing that was still true.” The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza wrote that voters shouldn’t give Clinton a pass for losing New Hampshire, arguing that despite Sanders’ natural appeal in the state, “the idea that a Clinton loss here was a fait accompli or should have been expected misses the mark – by a lot.” “Clinton is a former first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state. She is a pillar of the Democratic establishment and, when this race began, the biggest non-incumbent front-runner of either party in modern presidential history. Her opponent is a 74-year-old self-described democratic socialist who announced his presidential candidacy by press release and then followed it up with a sparsely attended news conference on Capitol Hill in which he never said the words, ‘I am running for president.’ ” “The Clinton-Sanders race – in New Hampshire and nationally – should have been a massive mismatch. That Sanders looks likely to improve on Clinton’s winning margin in New Hampshire over Barack Obama in 2008 is a big deal. Period. Full stop.” New Hampshire: The Clinton "Comeback" State Which brings us back to the 2008 New Hampshire primary, a contest central to saving Clinton’s first presidential candidacy. A rare display of emotion at a campaign stop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, delivered Clinton an unexpected and significant win against a surging then-Sen. Obama. “How do you do it?” freelance photographer Marianne Pernold Young asked Clinton at a local coffee shop on Jan. 7, 2008. “How do you, how do you keep upbeat, and so wonderful?” For whatever reason, the seemingly trite question triggered something in Clinton. “It’s not easy,” she admitted. “You know, I have so many opportunities from this country,” she continued, her voice growing shaky and her eyes wet, “and I just don’t want to see us fall backwards.” Although the former secretary of state ultimately lost the nomination, it was a watershed moment for her campaign, and just one of the reasons Clinton has said New Hampshire has “a special place in [her] heart.” Nearly two decades earlier, in 1992, her husband, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, at a low point in his presidential campaign following his Gennifer Flowers scandal, rebounded to secure a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire. The win set Bill on his trajectory to the White House and earned him a new nickname: “The Comeback Kid.” As The New York Times‘ Patrick Healy put it ahead of this year’s New Hampshire primary, “If Hillary Clinton loses … on Tuesday, it will hurt far more than the usual political setback.” The state has become “hallowed ground” for the Clintons, he wrote. However the loss may affect Clinton long-term, she’s nowhere near ready to admit defeat. “I still love New Hampshire and I always will,” she said in her concession speech Tuesday night. “And now we take this campaign to the whole country.”