MANCHESTER, New Hampshire—Granite State voters are famous for their procrastination. But this election cycle is particularly notable for just how indecisive the electorate seems to be. At rallies for all the leading candidates over the last few days, the predominant theme among attendees was that they were still deciding—and not in particularly predictable ways.
At a Bernie Sanders’ rally at Franklin Pierce University on Monday morning, one mother said she was choosing between the Vermont senator and former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg (who stand on opposite ends of the Democratic ideological spectrum) on the basis of who would speak to the issue of small business tax burdens. At an event for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Concord, few of the undecideds said they were considering fellow-ideological traveler Sanders. And at a Joe Biden event in Manchester, many attendees had an eye on Michael Bloomberg, though the former New York City mayor isn’t even competing in the state. Andy Boyle, a Manchester resident, had literally run into two presidential candidates this cycle while on jogs (Warren and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard). And yet, he was still unclear about his over voting preferences with only days to go.
That uncertainty has led to unpredictability. And as voters head to the polls on Tuesday, few prognosticators in the state were making predictions with much conviction. There was, instead, a compelling case to be made for each candidate in the field overperforming and underperforming. Here’s how.