The Shocking and Unexpected New Hampshire Primary Victory for Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton stunned the entire nation on the night of January 8 when she was declared the winner of the New Hampshire primary. The day prior to the New Hampshire primary featured polls from every major polling operation including Gallup, Rasmusan, CNN and several others. Each poll had Senator Barack Obama beating Senator Hillary Clinton by at least 8 percentage points in the polls. The smallest margin of victory for Obama had him up by 1 point according to the Suffolk University poll in New Hampshire. Not a single poll had Hillary Clinton winning the Granite state. Obama was preparing his second victory speech and Hillary Clinton was on the verge of firing her entire staff. Political analysts and pundits were saying the Obama could run away with this election. But then primary night released the stunning results, declaring Hillary Clinton the winner. So what the heck happened?

Leading up to primary day, Barack Obama was extremely confident of victory. Perhaps he even overestimated Hillary Clinton. He had a lackluster performance in the Facebook debate which was televised the Saturday before the primary day. During the debate, Hillary Clinton attacked Obama for having a campaign coordinator be the lobbyist for the Fizer drug company and also attacked Obama's short Senate record including his votes for funding the War in Iraq and voting for the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Hillary Clinton came out swinging in the debate and while all along it has been Obama's campaign strategy not to go negative on his rivals, he failed to respond to many of Hillary Clinton's attacks. Furthermore, it appeared that Hillary Clinton was finally able to convince the American public that the real difference between her and Obama is that she has the experience factor of "making change."