‘Give me that chance:’ Klobuchar hopes for boost on eve of N.H. primary

(FOX 9) - With her campaign on the line, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar raced to five events across New Hampshire on Monday on the eve of the first-in-the-nation primary there.

Klobuchar climbed to third place in two weekend polls in New Hampshire – ahead of rivals Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Her campaign said it has raised $3 million since Friday night’s debate. She has drawn larger crowds in New Hampshire than she did in Iowa.

“I am someone who can win this thing. That is why we’re surging. I think the people of New Hampshire get it,” Klobuchar said in Keene, her first stop of the day. “You know how to get this done. So I’m asking you to give me that chance.”

Klobuchar failed to get a boost from Iowa, where she finished in fifth place despite spending a significant portion of her campaign resources there. Now, she’s looking to New Hampshire to jump-start her White House bid.

During her third stop of the day Monday in Exeter, Klobuchar reveled in the enthusiasm of her crowd. The overflow room was directly above the stage where she spoke, and she laughed whenever she could hear their support through the ceiling.  

“We hear your voice, just please don’t break this place down,” she said. “If this is what the election is going to be like, it’s going to be really good!”

Klobuchar has made nearly a dozen campaign stops since Saturday morning, and her campaign has seven field offices around New Hampshire.

She and other candidates are buoyed by the fact that as many as half of New Hampshire voters remain undecided. In a University of New Hampshire/CNN poll released Monday, 21 percent of voters said they were leaning toward someone and 28 percent said they’re still trying to decide. (LINK: http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/02/10/top2c_nh.pdf) 

Klobuchar has a chance to finish in third place because of a strong debate performance Friday and since voters may be looking for a new candidate after Biden’s shaky performance in Iowa, said University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala.

“I do think third place in New Hampshire, ahead of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, would give her a reason to fight on,” Scala said in an interview.

New Hampshire has taken on additional importance this year because of the vote-counting fiasco during the Iowa caucuses. 

Iowa Democratic Party officials said Monday that they would undertake a 48-hour partial recanvass of the results because of inconsistencies. The campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, who finished one-two in the results, asked for the review.

Buttigieg stands to get 14 national delegates, according to figures released by the Iowa Democratic Party. Sanders would get 12; Warren, eight; Biden, six; and Klobuchar, one.