Biden Laments Being ‘The Underdog’ In New Hampshire Days Before Primary

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - FEBRUARY 07: Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden participates in the Democratic presidential primary debate in the Sullivan Arena at St. Anselm College on Feb... MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - FEBRUARY 07: Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden participates in the Democratic presidential primary debate in the Sullivan Arena at St. Anselm College on February 07, 2020 in Manchester, New Hampshire. Seven candidates qualified for the second Democratic presidential primary debate of 2020 which comes just days before the New Hampshire primary on February 11. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Former Vice President Joe Biden said in a rare-post debate interview following the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire Friday night that he believes he is “the underdog” in the state’s upcoming Tuesday primary.

During an interview with ABC News Friday night, Biden first railed against President Trump for having “no sense of empathy, I think very little sense of decency and decorum and what constitutes being a decent person” as well as his foreign policy being “an absolute disaster.”

When asked about his remark at the top of the debate when he said he “took a hit in Iowa” and will “probably take a hit here in New Hampshire as well,” Biden noted how initially he had “been the frontrunner all along here” before arguing that he’s now “the underdog.”

“I’ve had that target on my back from the beginning,” Biden said. “And the fact is in New Hampshire I’m the underdog because of the fact that, you know, Bernie won this place by 20 points last time and neighboring senators have gigantic influence, and so I think I’m an underdog.”

Biden then added that Sanders’ New Hampshire primary win against Hillary Clinton in 2016 “didn’t matter because I’m not going to walk away.”

“Like I said, I’ve lost a lot of things before in the past, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose to this guy Trump to lose the country to,” Biden said. “So when you say I came out and I decided that the attacks that are going on with me — I basically not responded to the last whatever months.”

Biden also added one more jab aimed at Sanders.

“But this idea that Bernie talking about — he’s a good guy — but Bernie talking about Biden has a lot of baggage, you know,” Biden said. “Everybody, we have to win the Senate back. He labels himself a Democratic socialist — this is going to be a field day for the President.”

Watch Biden’s remarks below:

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  1. Biden looks and sounds like a guy who’s time has passed. Perhaps if he had run 4 years ago we wouldn’t be in this situation, I don’t know. But watching some of the recent debates and watching him stumble in his responses and search for words, he just can provide a crisp enough presentation to be convincing that he should be the candidate. At this point he is only hanging on through the desperation of Democrats that as former Vice President under Obama, he could be the guy. Sadly, I have given up hope that he can.

  2. Seems so odd, since very recently he was the top dog, the one people would vote for. Don’t really know what happened unless the polls were misleading.

  3. That’s the point, wasn’t it, to monetize the presidency. Fat jenius taught them well.

  4. Biden had a great debate, his best performance thus far. Was authoritative, hit Bernie on single payer/socialism/guns, owned foreign policy. He did what he needed to to keep POC voters with him and he probably won the Culinary Union Workers endorsement with his health care focus. NH doesn’t matter for him. NV/SC do.

    His mistake was not setting expectations in IA. He’s done that here in NH. In the meantime, I think voters who are under no illusions about the binary choice of this primary (Biden v Bernie) will vote Biden if they happen to be older. He should be able to get some delegates. I do think that Pete has real momentum and will be successful in keeping Bernie in that mid 20s range.

    However, I favor Bernie to win NH b/c Amy Klobuchar will take too many potential votes from Pete and from Joe.

    The Warren campaign seems to be headed nowhere. Maybe she has a good turnout op that can get her to 18% and keep Bernie’s numbers down, but that performance last night wasn’t what was needed for her.

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