Marco Rubio took full responsibility for his disappointing fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night and apologized for an uneven debate performance that provided fodder to his Republican rivals.
"Our disappointment tonight is not on you. It's on me," the Florida senator told the crowd at a downtown Manchester hotel. "I did not do well on Saturday night. That will never happen again."
His supporters have been downcast for much of the night, but they cheered loudly for their candidate and chanted his name.
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Donald Trump basked in his first election victory Tuesday night in the New Hampshire primary, striding onstage to the Beatles’ rock anthem “Revolution” and exclaiming to cheering supporters: “Oh, wow! Wow. Wow. Wow. So beautiful. So beautiful.”
“I am going to be the greatest jobs president that God ever created,” the New York billionaire told a banquet hall crammed with hundreds of supporters. “Remember that.”
“USA! USA! USA!” his supporters chanted over and over, along with “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore is still kicking. The last-place candidate received 118 votes in the Granite State —roughly the same number as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who dropped out of the race last week — with 81% of precincts reporting.
Will he drop out?
"That is a decision that we will assess, not tonight," Gilmore said in an interview with The Times on Tuesday three hours after polls closed. "We obviously did run as hard as we could in the state of New Hampshire. At the end of the day the exclusion from the debates was critical."
This morning we gave you a list of the 13 New Hampshire towns that have correctly picked either the Republican or Democratic primary results in every election since 1952.
So far they've got it right again, based on unofficial returns reported by the Associated Press.
On the Democratic side there was little doubt. Hillary Clinton won only two towns with sizable populations - Bedford and Windham.
San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich was not happy to hear the winners of the New Hampshire primary.
The five-time world champion coach is known to be a little grumpy during in-game interviews, but he perked up a little when reporter David Aldridge asked Tuesday night if he wanted to know the winners.
"Who is it, what is it?" asked an excited Popovich.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz noted that he’s currently in third place in New Hampshire’s primary, while speaking to supporters at a campaign rally in Hollis, N.H.
“That was the result all of us were told was impossible,” he said. “Together we have done what the pundits and the media said could not be done, and what the Washington establishment desperately hoped would not be done.”
Cruz reminded his supporters that the same naysayers also wrongly predicted he’d lose Iowa.
In his speech tonight as returns showed him in sixth place with 7.7% in New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Christie signaled the end of his campaign might be near.
The New Jersey governor said he and his wife, MaryPat, would go home to New Jersey for the first time in two weeks. They plan to "take a deep breath [and] see what the final results are tonight, because that matters."
"We want to see exactly what happens," Christie said, as Twitter went nuts with posts saying he was "out" of the race.
John Kasich, who ran a largely upbeat campaign to a second-place finish in New Hampshire, used his victory speech Tuesday to prove his approach was the right one.
"Something big happened tonight," said the Ohio governor, criticizing the onslaught of negative ads against him. He finished second to Donald Trump.
"Maybe, just maybe, we are turning a page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness of negative campaigning."