Rep. Tim Ryan says a loss of less than 20 points in N.H. is a win for Hillary

By David Skolnick | February 6, 2016 at 12:04a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, who spent Friday campaigning on behalf of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, said the Democratic presidential candidate should consider it a success if she loses the Granite State’s primary Tuesday by less than 20 percentage points.

“New Hampshire is going to be tough because they’ll vote for the regional candidate,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Ryan said. “The map for her after New Hampshire is favorable. You get into South Carolina and Nevada, and she’ll do well there. Then as the campaign moves on, she’ll continue to do well.”

RealClearPolitics.com, a website that aggregates polling data, shows that four recent polls of New Hampshire Democrats have Sanders ahead of Clinton by 20.5 percentage points.

The website has Clinton with a 29.5 percentage-point lead over Sanders based on two polls in South Carolina. There haven’t been recent polls taken of Democrats in Nevada, but older ones give Clinton a large lead. She also has a 13.3 percentage-point lead on Sanders in recent national polls.

Ryan, of Howland, D-13th, is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire School of Law and campaigned on Clinton’s behalf in that state late last year.

Ryan was the first U.S. House member to publicly support Clinton in November 2013. She officially declared her candidacy for president in April 2015.

“People say she shouldn’t come here because she won’t win,” Ryan said early Friday while awaiting a cab to take him from Boston to New Hampshire. “But New Hampshire has been good to the Clintons. It’s her mentality to put up a fight.”

Ryan spent the day going to Clinton headquarters in Claremont, Lebanon and Plymouth, calling primary voters and touting her credentials.

When asked about Clinton’s 0.3 percentage-point victory in Tuesday’s Iowa caucus, Ryan said, “I thought it was a big win. The Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots by 2 points [in the AFC Championship game]. It’s a win. It was an electorate tailor-made for Sanders.”