Bernie Sanders wins big in New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders won Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic Party presidential primary in a double-digit landslide over Hillary Clinton.

“Together, we have sent a message that will echo from Wall Street to Washington and from Maine to California that the government of this great nation belongs to all of the people and not just a handful of wealthy campaign contributors and their super PACs,” Sanders told supporters crowded into a high school gymnasium.

With 65 percent of precincts reporting as of 10:34 p.m. Tuesday, Sanders was at 59.6 percent, and Clinton at 38.6 percent.

Sanders’ big victory in the first state to hold a presidential primary defied pundits’ predictions last summer of a Clinton coronation. “Nine months ago, we began our campaign here in the Granite State,” Sanders said. “We had no campaign organization and we had no money. And we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America, a team that defeated Barack Obama here in the Democratic primary in 2008.

“And tonight, through a record-breaking voter turnout, we won because we harnessed theenergy and the excitement that the Democratic Party will need to succeed in November.”

The New Hampshire primary results came eight days after another come-from-behind finish for Sanders in precinct caucuses in Iowa, where the one-time distant underdog fought Clinton to a virtual tie.

“Tonight,” Sanders said at Concord High School, “we served notice to the political and economic establishment of this country that the American people will not continue to accept a corrupt campaign finance system that is undermining American democracy and a rigged economy in which ordinary Americans work longer hours for lower wages while almost all new income and wealth goes to the top 1 percent.”

Before speaking to supporters, Sanders and his wife, Jane, watched the returns on television sets set up in the corners of a school gymnasium. While he was waiting to deliver his speech, the senator also played basketball with his children and grandchildren.