How Amy Klobuchar Pulled Off the Big Surprise of the New Hampshire Primary

“We first saw her in July, and we liked her very much, and around September, we were heavily leaning that way,” said Mark Hodgdon, 60, who lives in Epsom, N.H., but drove a half-hour to attend an afternoon event at state headquarters in Manchester on Tuesday. “She cares about all the liberal issues that I care about, including campaign finance reform, but her approaches are more practical.”

In her closing message as she barnstormed the state, Ms. Klobuchar began to make more direct appeals to moderates, and even some Republicans. Her campaign began targeting towns in New Hampshire that flipped from President Barack Obama to Donald J. Trump. She sat for an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News on Monday night after speaking to a luncheon of Nashua Rotary Club members earlier in the day.

“I’ve also seen a lot of anger, from people who stayed home in 2016, or independents, or Republicans that maybe voted for the president and are now stepping back and thinking, I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Ms. Klobuchar said at the luncheon, more often a campaign trail stop for Republican candidates than Democrats. “My campaign has always been about reaching out and not shutting people out, but bringing them with me.”

Ms. Klobuchar’s distinct and deliberate appeal to the centrist spirit caught fire with some late-breaking activists.

JoAnne St. John, an influential Democratic activist in Nashua who had long backed Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, was still adrift and without a candidate heading into the final weekend.

“I went to a Buttigieg rally, and at the end of that, I said, ‘I think I’m going to support him,’” she said in an interview on Tuesday. “But I had almost begrudgingly promised some of my very proficient Democrats here in Nashua that I would go see Amy at 3 o’clock. And I did, and I’m glad I did. I saw a woman with power. I’ve seen her many times before, but she has developed her style. I just looked at that woman onstage and I thought, ‘She can do this.’” (Ms. St. John voted for Ms. Klobuchar on Tuesday, and spent most of her day encouraging others to do the same.)

On the campaign trail, Ms. Klobuchar credited signs of growing support in New Hampshire to the fact that she actually had a chance to talk to voters here, rather than be stuck in the Senate for an impeachment trial, which kept her away from Iowa for weeks.

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