Two states down. 48 to go. The New Hampshire primaries took place last night, and the results were very predictable, with Donald Trump winning the Republican primary and Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic primary, with both winning by large margins. Now, while it is still very early in the nomination process, New Hampshire has showed us some pretty solid pointers as to what will happen next, even though the eventual nominees are almost impossible to predict. Here’s what I took away from yesterday’s voting.

John Kasich will drop

Look, before I begin, I must say this, congratulations on the solid second place finish Governor Kasich. It was well deserved. Now, get out while you still can.

Even though Kasich finished a surprising second place among the  Republican candidates, his national numbers are down near the bottom of the list. We must look at this as well, Kasich has put just about all of his efforts into New Hampshire, resulting in a strong finish, but his national numbers are too low.

Look at Bobby Jindal for an example. Before he dropped out, he was in the top five in Iowa because he was putting all of efforts into that state, but he was suffering nationwide. This led to him dropping out. I see almost the same results with Kasich, as he will not do well in many of the next states and will likely drop out after a few weeks.

Rest in Peace, Chris Christie’s campaign

It may be a harsh title to open a section, but it is very true. Like Kasich, Chris Christie was banking on New Hampshire to save him after a pitiful performance in Iowa, which saw him take second to last, beating out only Rick Santorum (unless you count Jim Gilmore, who received a total of 12 votes in Iowa). But unlike Kasich, Chris Christie didn’t do well in New Hampshire, finishing at sixth place out of eight major candidates (nine, if you include Jim Gilmore, which not many people do).

In fact, Chris Christie is skipping the South Carolina primary to go back to New Jersey to reevaluate his campaign, which, as I’m taking it, means that we won’t be seeing much of Chris Christie for too much longer.

Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina need to get out

First, let’s begin with Carly Fiorina. She was soaring after the first two debates, until she said that she had seen a Planned Parenthood video that either doesn’t exist or she is the only person on the face of the earth to have seen said video. After this, she began to fall faster than a boulder at freefall speed.

Now, it’s time for Fiorina to admit defeat and bow out of the race. She didn’t fair well in Iowa, didn’t fair well in New Hampshire and almost certainly won’t fair in any of the following states. So, Fiorina, do yourself a favor, save yourself the time and effort and drop out of the race.

Now, onto Ben Carson. Carson finished dead last of the major candidates in New Hampshire. Although he didn’t do too badly in Iowa, he was far out of third place. To be completely honest, I really cannot see Carson winning any states, although I can see him stealing a page from Ron Paul’s book and staying in the race until the nominee is decided.

Bernie vs. Hillary will be a photo finish

Now, onto the other side of the night. Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire with ease over Hillary Clinton, winning by a huge 21% margin. However, the only other state I can see Sanders winning by such a margin is his home state of Vermont.

The Democratic nomination will come down to the wire. While no other state may be decided by the same 0.2% margin as Iowa, there will be many states that will be extremely close. With Martin O’Malley out of the race, the fight for his supporters is on, and Sanders has been the one that’s been able to pick up the new voters so far in this campaign, so they could flock over to the Sanders support group. However, this is yet to be seen.
While everything stated above are mere predictions, it is important to realize that no matter what, the field will continue to shrink. Now, who’s to say that those predictions listed above are to come true? That’s the beauty of politics, the unpredictability. There is one thing that is for sure, being that South Carolina is the next battleground for the candidates to take on. I’ll see you there.