The first votes are being cast in New Hampshire's primary election on Tuesday, as Democratic presidential candidates crisscrossed the state in the race's final hours. Voting started just after midnight — including in Dixville Notch, N.H. — and will continue throughout the day. Stephanie Murray, author of The Politico Massachusetts Playbook, spoke with WGBH Radio Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu about where the candidates stand heading into the primary. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: Let's just start with the basic lay of the land. We have not seen too much movement in the numbers [over] the last 24 to 48 hours. It looks like the race to lose, essentially, for Bernie Sanders. And Amy Klobuchar [is] rising, in fact, and could even make a third place finish. Is that the landscape you're seeing?
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Stephanie Murray: This race, to me, is as wide open as like a bowling alley, or something like that. Even though we've seen the polling, we've got the candidates in the positions where we think they are — Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg being the candidates to beat, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren kind of trying to revitalize and gain some more momentum, and Amy Klobuchar creeping up on them — anything can happen in New Hampshire, particularly because so many voters are unenrolled, those independent voters. We do not know what they're going to do. And it's really anybody's game.
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Mathieu: I'm glad you said that, because the story always comes back to undecideds or people changing their mind at the last minute. New Hampshire is always proud to play that role. And when we heard, for instance, from supporters last night, earlier this hour, we played some of them with Elizabeth Warren's campaign. They said they just don't believe the polls, Stephanie.
Murray: I mean, it's an OK thing to believe. New Hampshire is notoriously hard to poll. New Hampshire voters kind of keep their cards close to the vest. And the definition of winning in New Hampshire isn't always coming in first place. If you think about 1992, Bill Clinton came in second in New Hampshire and had one of the most famous moments of that 1992 career when he gave that comeback kid speech and he went on to win. So it's finishing in the top one, two, three is what these campaigns want to do, not just finishing in first place.
Mathieu: Now that polls are open, what are you going to be watching today, Stephanie? There has been a lot of question about turnout following a sort of weak showing in Iowa.
Murray: I'm really watching out for Elizabeth Warren. I think she kind of got lost in the shuffle, or news about her campaign got lost in the shuffle between Iowa and now. The storylines that came out of there after the caucuses were Pete Buttigieg winning the delegates, winning the caucuses; Bernie Sanders winning the popular vote and declaring victory; Amy Klobuchar, a surprising, positive finish; and Joe Biden really falling back into fourth place. So I'm wondering if Elizabeth Warren could kind of get that momentum, especially because she's a neighboring state candidate. I mean, it's only 45 minutes to zip up to New Hampshire, and she's been there a lot. So, that's what I'm looking out for.
Mathieu: Are you kind of writing off the Deval Patrick campaign at this point? He says he's spent more time here than any other candidate, even though he got in the race later than just about all of them.
Murray: Hey, I'm not writing off anybody. And Deval Patrick had a really impressive showing at the McIntyre Shaheen dinner, which is kind of the last big blockbuster political event in Manchester, where all the campaigns bring their volunteers in and they have all their shirts on and they're cheering, and all the cheering sections are competing. He had around 800 people, which was a bigger showing than a lot of the other campaigns. He drew a crowd of, I think, 100 people in downtown Manchester yesterday before the Trump rally. So, I'm not writing him off and I'm keeping my eye on how he's going to do in South Carolina in a few weeks, as well.
Mathieu: This is an important conversation with Stephanie because she's reminding us that surprises happen in New Hampshire. Don't feel like this thing is done. In fact, it's actually just getting started.