Hillary Clinton's campaign looks beyond New Hampshire defeat
March's presidential nominating contests will be key to Hillary Clinton's path to win the Democratic nomination, her campaign manager said in a memo that was blasted out as polls closed in New Hampshire's primary.
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"The nomination will very likely be won in March, not February, and we believe that Hillary Clinton is well positioned to build a strong - potentially insurmountable - delegate lead next month," wrote campaign manager Robby Mook in a memo sent out to "interested parties."
Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada only account for just 4 percent of the delegates needed to secure the nomination, the memo said. By contrast, the 28 states that hold their primaries or caucuses in March award more than half -- 56 percent -- of the delegates needed to win.
The memo came out as polls officially closed in the first-in-the-nation-primary at 8 p.m. and the initial results that flowed in showed that Clinton's rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, was projected to win the Granite State.
States that hold their nominating contests next month, the memo said, are much more representative of the diversity within the Democratic Party compared to the first four states. Mook suggests that Clinton will perform much better in those states because of their large Hispanic and black populations -- voting blocs that Clinton has so far received more support from in polls compared to Sanders.
The campaign already has a strategy in place for those states: use analytics to determine where to get the most number of delegates; there are paid organizers on the ground in all of the March states; use campaign surrogates wisely and deploy a targeted advertising campaign, the memo said.
Mook said Sanders' past votes on Obamacare, immigration reform and gun safety will cause "significant problems for him in states with large African American and Hispanic populations."
He also suggested that Clinton already has a leg-up because of the number of her Super Delegates.
"When you take into account the large number of Super Delegate commitments we've secured, as well as Hillary's commanding lead in the polls in delegate-rich states, she is in a very strong position to become the nominee," he said.