Clinton's numbers rose as Edwards' slipped

While some will suggest that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire victory can be traced to her emotional comments shortly before the primary, and others will credit Bill Clinton, there is some evidence to suggest that the collapse of the John Edwards campaign in the Granite State may have given Clinton a victory that multiple polls promised would go to Sen. Barack Obama.

Edwards’s weak 17% showing in New Hampshire was a significant drop from his 30% finish in Iowa just a few days earlier. (It’s probably more accurate to conclude that Edwards drew 23% or 24% in Iowa, not 30%, since that’s what the Iowa entrance poll found. Edwards undoubtedly benefited in the caucuses from realignment, which boosted his final percentage past Clinton, though more people went into the caucuses saying that they would support her. Still, Edwards’s 6-point drop between the Iowa entrance poll and the New Hampshire exit poll is worth noting.)

It’s not that Edwards is unpopular with his party’s voters. A solid 79% of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters had a favorable opinion of him, and many said that he “cares about people.”

But exit polling from New Hampshire shows that the former North Carolina senator flopped with a number of groups that, given the tone and message of his campaign, he should have scored with – groups with which Clinton made noteworthy gains.

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It would be reasonable to assume that Edwards’s former supporters would switch to Obama, the other “change” candidate in the race, and the Democrats who seemed to have momentum going into New Hampshire. But that apparently didn’t happen.

Instead, it was Clinton whose numbers generally rose as Edwards’s slipped.