To be fair, media personnel may have expected Bernie Sanders to win the New Hampshire primary. (After all, ‘he’s from a neighboring state’.)
Sanders (reuse wiki)
Still, that said–here is a quick rundown of today’s headlines about New Hampshire 2020. “BERNIE WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE”? “SANDERS WINS 2ND DEM CONTEST”? Well, no, mainly not. Some respectable news outlets conveyed the straight fact, “SANDERS WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE.” But prominently, on February 12, 2020, the morning after the extensively covered first primary and second voting event of the 2020 presidential election, we get this sampling:
From my (print) issue of The Washington Post: “With win in N.H., Sanders controls Democrats’ left wing”
From The New York Times: “Bernie Sanders Scores Narrow Victory in New Hampshire”
From NYT Wednesday Briefing: “Bernie Sanders edges out Pete Buttigieg”
From USA Today: “Bernie Sanders’ campaign defends narrow win in New Hampshire after big 2016 showing”
From Fox News: “Sanders edges out Buttigieg to win New Hampshire, as Klobuchar surges to third”
From the New York Post: “Bernie Sanders a limp leader after barely squeaking by in New Hampshire”
From Axios: “Bernie Sanders’ uneasy New Hampshire win”
Et cetera. As one tweet put it,
No. 1 story of the night: @amyklobuchar
No. 2 story of the night (so far): @PeteButtigieg coming closer to @BernieSanders than expected.
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) February 12, 2020
For my money, the WaPo headline stinks most. Again to be fair, Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, willingly markets Sanders book and campaign merchandise. So that’s something saved from the wreck. But the Post headline is a swift two-fer using Sanders to blank out Elizabeth Warren, figuratively speaking.
Meanwhile, most of the national political press is comparing 2020 turnout to 2008 turnout for Obama.
More later on the ‘turnout’ narratives trending in media.
Update, 9:26 AM:
From Politico’s “Playbook”: “Bernie wins New Hampshire by a whisker”
Update, 10:07 AM:
From Politico “Morning Score”: “Sanders edges Buttigieg in New Hampshire”