Republican presidential debate: 6 takeaways

 Republican presidential debate: 6 takeaways

Donald Trump is leading the race, but Marco Rubio owned the stage -- finally turning against Trump in a late effort to block the real estate mogul from running away with the Republican nomination.

Rubio attacked Trump's character. And Ted Cruz followed up by questioning Trump's conservative credentials.

The big questions of the night: Which senator did a better job convincing voters they can best take on Trump? Did Rubio's attacks and interruptions show a new side of himself? Did Cruz do enough to persuade people he's worth another look? Or did Trump's dismissive counters -- Rubio is a "choke artist," while Cruz is a "liar" -- leave him looking like a strongman swatting away the sorts of politicians that turned his supporters furious in the first place?

Here are six takeaways from the final Republican debate before Super Tuesday:


Rubio stands up to Trump




From the opening minutes, Rubio mercilessly prodded, slammed and taunted Trump, talking over him in the sort of sustained way that Jeb Bush never could.

Rubio called the real estate mogul's Trump University "a fake school." He invoked Trump's business record to question his sincerity on immigration, saying: "You're the only person on this stage that's ever been fined for hiring people that worked on your projects illegally.

When Trump dismissed those allegations as old news, Rubio shot back: "I guess there's a statute of limitations on lies."

Later, as Trump insisted that the crux of his health care plan would involve allowing insurance purchases across state lines, Rubio pressed for more specifics, saying that "now he's repeating himself" -- an ironic response from a candidate who has been mocked as robotic for repeating talking points at speeches and debates.

The position you've taken is an anti-Israel position," Rubio said.

When Trump said he was simply a "negotiator," Rubio shot back: "The Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald."

Through it all, Rubio kept a smile on his face -- almost as if to say to the audience, "Can you believe this guy?
Why Rubio was relentless against Trump



For Rubio, it was now or never. His attacks, and those of Cruz, weren't necessarily new in substance -- Trump isn't a conservative, Trump is untrustworthy, and so on -- but what stood out was Rubio's sense of urgency to put himself center stage with the billionaire front-runner.

What it was about: Lighting a fire under the donor class and GOP establishment.

READ: First on CNN: Rubio prepares for contested convention

Rubio has to demonstrate that he's worth a massive investment -- right this minute -- to try to block Trump from winning a nomination that the establishment grows more convinced by the day is his for the taking.

"We have an incredible decision to make, not just about the direction of America but the identity of our party and the conservative movement. The time for games is over," Rubio said in his closing statement.

"I know you had a lot of choices to make, but now it's time to narrow it down and I'm asking you to get behind me ... so we can bring an end to this silliness, this looniness."


Trump's counterattacks draw blood



An underestimated Trump quality: His counterpunches often play extremely well with conservatives who distrust politicians and the media.

For instance, an early exchange, when Rubio asserted that Trump is "the only person on this stage that's ever been fined for hiring people that worked on your projects illegally."

Trump's response: "I'm the only one on this stage that's hired people."

Another of his one-liners may have been the most damaging. "This guy's a choke artist, and this guy's a liar," he said, turning to first Rubio and then Cruz.

Expect to hear more of that in the days ahead. Time and time again, Trump has proven that he owns the post-debate.

Whether it's leveraging his massive influence on social media to wage a war against Fox's Megyn Kelly or driving home his best lines of attack by calling in to every news television show on the air, he has a way of shortening the half-life of bad headlines.

As soon as the debate ended, he mocked Rubio's perspiration.

"It looked like he just came out of a swimming pool. He was soaking wet," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "He's a meltdown guy. I mean I look at him, he's just pouring sweat. ... We need somebody that doesn't sweat."


Trump shows why he's winning



He was hit from both sides of the stage Thursday night, but Trump managed to score some points of his own.

He consistently owns some issues that none of his rivals fight him for.

Trump laid into Mexico and China, blasting U.S. trade policies and giving Americans a direct outlet for their anger about job losses and wage stagnation.

He used former Mexican President Vicente Fox's attack in a Fusion interview, when he said he's "not going to pay for that f---ing wall" that Trump wants to build, to showcase his strength in the face of adversity.

"The wall just got 10 feet higher," Trump said.


Did Cruz do enough?



He spent much of his time attacking Trump, too -- but Cruz was clearly Robin to Rubio's Batman in going after the front-runner on stage.

The Texas senator's line of attack was designed to undercut Trump's conservative credentials. And if that was the goal, he had some success -- with Trump asserting at one point that "millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood," a group that is anathema on the right.

Mostly, though, Cruz waited for openings that were never there -- because Rubio had spotted them first.

Cruz did regain his footing late in the debate, laying into Trump for donating to Democratic politicians and deflecting Trump's goading that he not "get nervous" by saying, "I promise, Donald, there is nothing about you that makes anyone nervous."

But the most raucous debate yet was about personality, and Cruz showed less of it than Rubio and Trump.

His best line might have come at the start of the debate.

"In 2013 when I was leading the fight against the 'Gang of Eight' amnesty bill, where was Donald?" Cruz said. "He was firing Dennis Rodman on 'Celebrity Apprentice.'"

Cruz's problem -- Rubio's attacks showed a new side of the Florida senator, and that may get him more of a second look than Cruz gets.


'Can someone attack me, please?'



That was Ben Carson's unsuccessful effort to work his way into an explosive exchange between Rubio, Trump and Cruz.

There were five candidates on stage. But Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich were both off to the side — their refusal to engage with other candidates, or criticize anything at all, turned both into afterthoughts.

Years After Erin Andrews Was Hotel Stalked, Video Proves It Could Still Happen to Anyone

Years After Erin Andrews Was Hotel Stalked, Video Proves It Could Still Happen to Anyone

Back in 2009, sports reporter Erin Andrews wasrapidly gaining notoriety and popularity, but not only because she was proving herself to be an extremely knowledgable and long-lasting voice in the arena of sports news. Unfortunately, her massive spike in the national conversation was due to the fact that a stalker had found a way toillegally film her naked in her hotel room the year before.
Opinions were mixed at the time and some people even questionedwhether she had somehow allowed or invited the stalker to film her while she was alone in a locked room she considered private. No one could have predicted then that eight years later, the topic would still be relevant and Andrews would still be seeking reparations. Two days ago, jury selection began for the $75 million civil lawsuit she has filed against the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University for negligence in allowing her stalker such easy access to her. She also accused them of infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

In 2010, Michael Barrett, the man who followed Andrews to multiple cities and filmed eight videos of her changing clothes through peep holes in hotel room doors, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He was arrested in 2009 after TMZ turned him in for attempting to sell them the videos. It was revealed that he had simply asked hotel staff to put him in a room adjacent to his victim. They had obliged, telling him her room number and giving him the room right next to hers. Andrews had no idea.

What happened to Andrews goes well beyond the standard misogyny that female television personalities often face — and she still faces that too. If it can happen to an extremely successful ESPN reporter, it can happen to anyone, right?

Yeah, that’s right. In fact, eight years later, that’s still right. After the arrest, the hearing that sentenced Barrett, and this latest lawsuit and trial, Inside Edition found that what Barrett did to Andrews is still scarily easy to pull off.

In 2009, reporters from IE called the Marriott at which Andrews was filmed, asking to be put in a room near Lisa Guerrero, just as Barrett asked to be near Andrews a year earlier. They were told she’d already checked in, and while they couldn’t be in a room near hers, they could be one floor away. Following that report, the Marriott allegedly switched management and began enacting a stricter privacy policy regarding the names and locations of guests.

As a follow-up, IE decided to investigate the Marriott in Times Square this year and find out just how well that new policy held up.

It didn’t.

Police Academy's George Gaynes made silliness an artform

As the father on Punky Brewster and the doddering police commander Eric Lassard, famous for a scene in which he attempts to make a speech while being orally pleasured, the actor always threw himself into the material

Versatile character actor George Gaynes died in his daughter’s home in North Bend, Washington, at age 98 on Monday, leaving behind an enormous body of work that stretched across numerous sitcoms, made-for-TV movies, features films, theater and even opera productions all around the world.

Gaynes is probably best known for his film and television work in the 1980s – as an adoptive father on Punky Brewster, doddering police commandant Eric Lassard in seven Police Academy films, and a seasoned soap opera star besotted with Dustin Hoffman’s alter ego in 1984’s Tootsie.

Gaynes – born George Jongejans in Helsinki, Finland – had an incredibly commanding presence on film, with a rich, booming voice and authoritative demeanor, which he often subverted to great comic effect, especially in the Police Academy series. As Commandant Lassard, he managed to project all the gravitas you might expect of a high-ranking police official placed in command of the Metropolitan Police Academy, but played the part with an abiding befuddlement and overly sincere delivery that elevated the character beyond the kind of bureaucratic, blowhard comedic foil lampooned by so many comedies of the era into a memorably funny character ultimately as beloved by fans of the franchise as any of the characters to appear in the films.

In one his best-known scenes as Commandant Lassard, Gaynes’s attempt to deliver a speech to his misfit cadets is disrupted by a randy fan eager to surreptitiously disrupt his train of thought. Gaynes’s performance in the decidedly not safe for work scene is a master class in slapstick performance, beginning with the way his voice fluctuates to indicate his distress and elevating to the point where his features are distorted into a hilarious grimace. Where another actor might have looked at the scene and seen an opportunity to play a character attempting to retain their dignity, Gaynes commits fully to the lewd anarchy of the moment.

This willingness to commit to his material is also on display in his role as Henry Warninmont in Punky Brewster, which saw Gaynes play the straight man to a host of adorable children and a dog, a situation many actors might have seen as repellent. A given scene in any episode of the show, which ran for four seasons starting in 1984, might find Gaynes playing the part of grouchy disciplinarian or a warm, kindhearted father, sometimes in quick succession, as in the following clip.

In his interaction with Punky, Gaynes is completely believable as a father exasperated by his foster daughter’s inability to succeed academically, but he also expresses real warmth, not annoyed in the least by Punky’s quips as much as appreciative of her spirit. Even more impressive might be the short bit that follows, where he converses with Punky’s dog at the kitchen table. There’s nothing knowing about Gaynes’s delivery there, no wink at the camera to indicate he recognizes how silly the scene is or that he is above relatively lightweight material. He simply plays the scene realistically.

While Gaynes might never have achieved leading man status or became a household name for all his hard work, he did achieve something very few actors are capable of – he elevated everything he appeared in without hogging the spotlight. Through his commitment to the material, his warmth, his willingness to play the straight man when another actor was tasked with garnering laughs and instinct for comedy when placed in the spotlight, he carved an indelible path from his first role in NBC Television Theater in 1955 to his last, in the 2003 film Just Married.

Zach LaVine highlights Rising Stars with 30 points, 7 boards

TORONTO -- Zach LaVine hoisted the MVP trophy above his head, laughing along with Minnesota Timberwolves teammates Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns as he stood on the podium.

One win down at All-Star Weekend. One to go.

LaVine had 30 points and seven rebounds and the United States team beat the World team 157-154 in the BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge on Friday night on the opening night of All-Star festivities.

In the game featuring some of the best rookies and sophomores in the league, LaVine geared up to defend his slam dunk title on Saturday night by making 13 of 20 shots to beat Wiggins, who took home MVP honors last year in Brooklyn.

"I'm excited for tomorrow," said LaVine, who revived interest in the dunk contest with an electrifying performance last year. "I'm ready to put on a show."

Kristaps Porzingis scored 30 points, and Emmanuel Mudiay had 30 points and 10 assists for the World team. Wiggins scored 29 points while playing in front of his hometown fans.

Los Angeles Lakers sophomore Jordan Clarkson added 25 for the Americans.

The Rising Stars game can sometimes take on the feel of a sideshow, something that forces the next generation into a spotlight that they aren't always ready for. But the court was loaded with talent on Friday night in Toronto, players like Wiggins, Porzingis, Towns, Elfrid Payton and Jabari Parker.

The influx of talent has given several long-suffering franchises -- the Timberwolves, Knicks, Bucks -- hope that better days are arriving soon.

For most fans in attendance, Wiggins was the star attraction. He has been churning out highlight reels since he was 14 years old, was drafted No. 1 overall last season and won the rookie of the year award. The locals have called him "Maple Jordan" and openly pine for him to one day come home and play for the Raptors.

"It felt great," Wiggins said. "I got to play in front of a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time. My family, friends got to watch it. It was great being back home and playing in front of my hometown."

Wiggins has stated time and again that he loves it in Minnesota and envisions a long and bright future with Towns, LaVine and the rest of the Timberwolves' promising young core. But he has never shied away from his love of Toronto and he said he was looking forward to being back in Canada for an extended stretch this weekend while the rest of the basketball world finally trained its focus on his hometown.

Wiggins received a thunderous ovation upon introduction in the starting lineup and was serenaded with chants of "M-V-P! M-V-P!" late in the game.

"He's a rock star in his hometown," LaVine said.

For as much time as the 20-year-old Wiggins has spent in the spotlight in his young life, he is remarkably disinterested in attention. He threw down a few big dunks early in the game -- one off of a backboard pass from Mudiay -- to get the crowd on its feet, but was also happy to let his teammates get in on the action until a late flurry that got the World team back in it.

Porzingis, the Latvian who captivated the Big Apple and helped revive the Knicks, hit 5 of 8 3-pointers and threw down an alley-oop midway through the second half. And Mudiay, the Nuggets rookie who has struggled with his shot this season, hit 5 of 10 from deep.

Phoenix Suns rookie Devin Booker scored 23 points, and Towns had 18 for the U.S. team.

And Wiggins wasn't mad at all that LaVine walked out of the arena with the MVP trophy.

"I got it last year, he got it this year," Wiggins said. "(Towns) is going to get it next year. We're going back-to-back-to-back. That's the plan."

TORONTO -- Shaquille O'Neal was just 9 years old when his stepfather began teaching him basketball with a plan to dominate like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Young Shaquille didn't even know who they were. Now he's on the verge of joining them in basketball immortality.

"He told me this day would happen and I never believed him,'' O'Neal said of Phillip Harrison, who raised Shaq along with his mother and died in 2013.

O'Neal was chosen Friday as a finalist for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, joining Allen Iverson to highlight the potential class.

Yao Ming could accompany them in Springfield, Massachusetts, in September, though he was nominated by the Hall's International Committee and wasn't subject to the step O'Neal and Iverson had to clear Friday.

Former Phoenix Suns point guard Kevin Johnson, college coaches Tom Izzo, Bo Ryan, Lefty Driesell, Eddie Sutton and Muffet McGraw; women's superstar Sheryl Swoopes, longtime referee Darrel Garretson, high school coaches Leta Andrews and Robert Hughes, 10-time AAU national champion Wayland Baptist University, and John McClendon, the first African-American coach in a professional league, also were chosen as finalists by the North American or Women's Committees.

The entire class will be unveiled April 4 in Houston before the NCAA championship game and enshrinement ceremonies are set for Sept. 9 in what could be an overcrowded birthplace of basketball if O'Neal, Yao, Iverson and their fans are all there.

"We're going to go on tour,'' joked Jerry Colangelo, chairman of the Hall of Fame board. "It could be a big one.''

O'Neal and Iverson couldn't be much different as people or players. The 7-foot-1 O'Neal, dressed in business attire wearing a jacket and tie, lived up to his stepfather's vision by becoming an inside force like Chamberlain, Russell and Abdul-Jabbar on his way to four NBA championships and an MVP award.

"Later on in my career people started comparing me to them, so I was like if you want to compare me to the greats, I have to represent the game with grace and honor, and hopefully I did that,'' O'Neal said.

Iverson came casually dressed as he did for most of his career, wearing a T-shirt, Yankees hat and faded jeans with a couple of neck chains as accessories. It was his look that made him as popular with a generation of fans as his game.

"I'm a product of Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, all those guys that paved the way for us,'' Iverson said. "They might not have no idea of what they did for us as kids wanting to be like them.''

And many of today's small, speedy guards wanted to be like Iverson, a 6-foot, relentless wave of energy who averaged 26.7 points, won four scoring titles and an MVP award.

"I was fast until Allen Iverson. I'm not afraid to admit it,'' Johnson said. "They called me the fastest point guard in the NBA with the basketball, and I knew I had to relinquish that title the moment I saw Allen Iverson play.''

Yao recalled first watching the NBA live in China during the 1994 finals, when Houston won the title. He went on to play for the Rockets after they made the 7-6 center the No. 1 pick in the 2002 draft, and now he could find out he's a Hall of Famer in that city.

"I feel very peaceful,'' Yao said. "I'm glad it all can be connected to Houston.''

He, O'Neal and Iverson all benefited from a recent change in Hall of Fame rules that made a player eligible for candidacy after four full years of retirement. It was previously five, which meant they were actually six years removed from their playing days before they could be enshrined.

"Now we benefit this year by a couple of people who are going to be eligible, but we've been talking about this for a while as a board,'' Colangelo said. "So I think it's a good move for the Hall of Fame.''

Longtime NBA reporter David Aldridge and ESPN broadcaster Jay Bilas won the 2016 Curt Gowdy Media Awards, while Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is the John W. Bunn Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

"I am honored beyond words," Bilas said in a statement released by ESPN. "I am so grateful to be the recipient of such a prestigious award, and when I look at the list of Gowdy Award honorees, I cannot help but feel unworthy.

NBA scores 2016: Rockets almost beat the Warriors at their own game

The Rockets put up a valiant fight against the NBA champions. The Jazz keep surging, John Wall did it all and everything else from Tuesday in the NBA.

e Houston Rockets almost did it. They withstood the early onslaught. They maintained their composure. They even went on a run of their own. The really almost did it. They hung with the Golden State Warriors playing the Warriors' way.

But, then the fourth quarter started, and the Warriors did what they always do. They pulled away and went on to win, 123-110, to move to 47-4 on the season and remain undefeated at home. It's the best start in NBA history through 51 games.


Stephen Curry was spectacular as usual, netting 35 points and dishing out nine assists, and the role players were fantastic, too. Marreese Speights had 15 points off the bench, Andre Iguodala had 12 points, six assists and six rebounds and Harrison Barnes had 19 points while leading the run that blew the game open in the fourth -- Curry didn't even score in the final quarter.

James Harden led the Rockets with 37 points and Dwight Howard added 16 points and 15 boards on a night the Rockets showed they can hang with the Warriors' offense -- but like the rest of the NBA -- only for spurts.

Curry was ridiculous in the first quarter. He had 16 points and was 5 of 6 from deep, only missing a 30-foot heave trying to beat the buzzer as the Warriors jumped out to a 42-27 lead.

The Rockets, to their credit, did something no one else has been able to do this year -- they went on a Warriors-esque run against the Warriors. They went on a 36-15 run to take the lead thanks to ball movement and crisp passing.

The Warriors tied the game at 93 heading into the fourth then went on a 17-5 run while Curry sat on the bench and the game was over.

It's hard to say it was a moral victory for the Rockets, who dropped to 27-27 on the season, but they were resilient against the Warriors even if they weren't able to pull off the upset. The Rockets should continue to be a fast-paced team if they want to have a shot of returning to the form that put them in the Western Conference Finals last season. When they move the ball the way they did in the second and third quarters, the Rockets have an offense that has the ability to light up the scoreboard.

They showed a glimpse of what they can be on Tuesday. If they can consistently approach that, the West might have one more team to worry about.

It was a huge win for the Jazz, who look like the team many pundits were picking to make the playoffs in the West. The biggest reason for their recent success is an improved defense. With Rudy Gobert back in the lineup after missing 18 games, the team is shutting down offenses -- especially in this seven-game stretch when their defensive rating (points given up per 100 possessions) is 95.8.

But look closer, and the Jazz should be streaking. The competition has been less than stellar during their current win streak. The biggest win came against the Mavericks. Other than that, they beat an imploding Chicago Bulls squad and nudged out wins over the Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets. The defense is improved, but it's not like they're going up against offensive powerhouses. Until they prove it against some tougher squads, the jury is still out on whether Utah can give one of the top four teams in the West a scare in the playoffs.
John Wall is a bad, bad man. (Even if he almost blew it.)

Wall was superb against the New York Knicks. He had 28 points and 17 assists, but with the Wizards up by three with less than four seconds to play, he left his man wide open.

Fortunately for Wall, Langston Galloway missed the open look and the Wizards held on for a 111-108 win in Madison Square Garden. Aside from the blunder -- and he probably thought the Wizards were going to foul -- Wall was spectacular. The offense ran through him all night. Of his 17 assists, 10 of them assisted three-point shots, per Chris Herring of the Wall Street Journal. Plus, he was making big shots down the stretch. Twice he made step-back jumpers with Kristaps Porzingis guarding him. John Wall was doing everything he could to make sure the Wizards won this game -- on offense, that is.

The Knicks, meanwhile, couldn't pull off a win in their first game under new coach Kurt Rambis, but they did show some spurts of greatness. Carmelo Anthony had 33 points and 13 rebounds and Porzingis added 20 points and three blocks. Their offense had a little more pep and ball movement than it had in the last few games of the Derrick Fisher era, but there's still a long way to go for this Knicks squad.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Win the New Hampshire Primaries

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Donald J. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont harnessed working-class fury to surge to commanding victories in a New Hampshire primary that drew energetic turnout across the state.

The victories by two outsider candidates dealt a remarkable rebuke to the political establishment, and left the race deeply unsettled.

Mr. Trump, the wealthy businessman whose blunt language and outsider image have electrified many Republicans and horrified others, benefited from an unusually large field of candidates that split the vote among traditional politicians like Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

But Mr. Trump also tapped into a deep well of anxiety among Republicans and independents in New Hampshire, according to exit polling data, and he ran strongest among voters who were worried about illegal immigrants, incipient economic turmoil and the threat of a terrorist attack in the United States.

The win for Mr. Sanders amounted to a powerful and painful rejection of Hillary Clinton, who has deep history with New Hampshire voters and offered policy ideas that seemed to reflect the flinty, moderate politics of the state. But Mr. Sanders, who has proposed an emphatically liberal agenda to raise taxes and impose regulations on Wall Street, drew support from a wide cross-section of voters who trust him more to address income inequality and expand the health care system.

Mrs. Clinton, who won the primary here in 2008, planned to huddle with her advisers on Wednesday to discuss possible changes in political strategy and additions of staff members, according to Democrats close to the Clintons. She also plans to discuss whether to mount new lines of attack against Mr. Sanders on Thursday night at their next debate.

While Mr. Trump has led in New Hampshire polls since July, and Mr. Sanders has been ahead for the last month, the wave of support for both men was nonetheless stunning to leaders of both parties who believed that in the end, voters would embrace more experienced candidates like Mrs. Clinton or one of the Republican governors in the race. Yet the two men won significant support from voters who felt betrayed by their respective parties and were dissatisfied or angry with the federal government.

By winning so handily, the brash New Yorker and the blunt Vermonter asserted themselves as political forces that their parties and their opponents must quickly reckon with.

On the Republican side, with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas winning the leadoff Iowa caucuses and Mr. Trump prevailing here, the political establishment is confronted with two leading candidates, running well-funded campaigns, who party leaders think will lose badly in a November general election. Their success in the two early nominating states suggests that a long, costly and unusually turbulent primary campaign will follow.

Mr. Trump’s candidacy, in particular, represents a potential takeover of a party in which he has scant ties. Leveraging celebrity and a ubiquitous presence across both traditional and social media, Mr. Trump has embraced a style of populism on trade, foreign policy and immigration closer to the European nationalist parties than to American conservatism.

He has never held elected office and was not even a registered Republican this time four years ago.

For the Democrats, Mr. Sanders’s popularity with liberals, young people, and some women and working-class white men has underscored potential vulnerabilities for Mrs. Clinton in the nominating contests ahead. She is now under enormous pressure to prove that her message can inspire and rally voters, and she has gone so far as to promise to rethink and adjust her campaign strategy in hopes of connecting better with Democrats, including women, whom she has long viewed as her base.

Mr. Sanders faces his own test to show that he can appeal to voters beyond the largely white, left-leaning electorates in Iowa and New Hampshire, and attract large numbers of rank-and-file Democrats.

Clinton advisers gritted their teeth Tuesday night as they dissected exit polls and other data to determine if Mrs. Clinton’s political vulnerabilities stemmed from the particular demographics of New Hampshire, which is overwhelmingly white, or if they reflected deeper unease. One troubling sign: Mr. Sanders was the choice, by a lopsided margin, among voters who said it was most important to have a candidate who is “honest and trustworthy.”

Several advisers to Mrs. Clinton said they were especially concerned about her support among women — the group that provided her margin for victory in the 2008 New Hampshire primary. The Clinton strategy depends on her beating Mr. Sanders among women and attracting large numbers of minority voters, like Hispanics in Nevada and African-Americans in South Carolina. Those states hold the next Democratic contests, later this month.

“A big win in Nevada is really important for her to show she represents the changing face of America and can build on that,” said Jim Manley, a Clinton backer and a former senior aide to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader. “Nevada and South Carolina are where she needs to regain her footing after New Hampshire.”

Both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have built robust political operations in those next states, but Sanders advisers say momentum is on their side after the New Hampshire victory and a near-tie in the Iowa caucuses. Mr. Sanders is also hoping that his proposals for a $15 minimum wage and a breakup of big banks will find support in vote-rich Las Vegas and Reno, where many people earn low wages and lost homes to banks after the 2008 financial crisis.

A win for Mr. Sanders in the Feb. 20 Nevada caucuses would raise additional doubts about Mrs. Clinton.

“New Hampshire will have a real impact in Nevada for Bernie, and Nevada will have a real impact in South Carolina,” said Tick Segerblom, a Nevada state senator supporting Mr. Sanders.

But first Mrs. Clinton and her husband must shake off the New Hampshire loss, one of the most stinging of their long political careers.

The couple have been unusually attached to this state for decades: Bill Clinton stabilized his scandal-plagued presidential bid in 1992 with a second-place finish in the primary, and Mrs. Clinton made her own comeback in 2008 by winning here with 39 percent of the vote after losing the Iowa caucuses to Barack Obama.

This time around, the Clintons tried to diminish the state’s importance by arguing that Mr. Sanders had an advantage because he was from a neighboring state. But they campaigned vigorously all the same, and Mr. Clinton himself unleashed a lengthy, pointed attack on Mr. Sanders at an appearance on Sunday evening.

The defeat also powerfully captured the way that the Democratic electorate has changed since the Clintons held power in the 1980s in Arkansas; in the 1990s in the White House; and through early 2009, when Mrs. Clinton gave up her Senate seat in New York to become secretary of state. The party’s restive left wing is exerting much more influence, partly because of anger at the financial industry and establishment politics after the Great Recession. Mrs. Clinton, in turn, has always come across as a pragmatist more than a dreamer, and she rarely intones a vision of America that is broadly inspiring.

“That lack of idealism is what allowed Obama to beat her, and it’s giving Bernie room to grow,” said Dan Payne, a Democratic strategist in Boston who supports Mrs. Clinton.

The unaffiliated New Hampshire voters who participated in both party primaries, and who supported Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders in sizable numbers, appear to have found those candidates’ anti-establishment messages to be an asset.

Merging politics and entertainment, Mr. Trump disregarded the time-honored New Hampshire traditions of lavishing personal attention on voters and offering them detailed policy proposals. Instead, he flew in and out of the state on his private jet when the weather cooperated, held raucous rallies, and won support by faulting immigrants who entered the country illegally for crime and job losses, proposing a temporary ban on Muslims to prevent terrorism.

He declared his independence from a reviled status quo by inveighing in blunt and occasionally vulgar terms about “stupid” leaders weakening America. And in appealing to his fellow Northeasterners, in one of the country’s most secular states, Mr. Trump was on hospitable political terrain. He may have held fewer events here than any other Republican candidate except Ben Carson, but his voters cared little.

Conversely, New Hampshire’s Republican leaders, who jealously guard their first-in-the-nation status, were as perplexed as they were horrified.

“By name, I only know five people supporting Donald Trump,” John H. Sununu, a former governor of New Hampshire, said Tuesday. “So I say I cannot understand this electorate.”

But Mr. Trump’s win here was not without precedent: 20 years ago, Patrick J. Buchanan, another insurgent who had never held elected office and who also ran as a populist, won the primary here, thwarting the party’s power brokers, thanks partly to blue-collar voters.

New Hampshire has proved a stabilizing force in the last two Republican primaries, catapulting John McCain and Mitt Romney toward the nomination. But with a primary in which independent voters can participate and voters can register on site at their regular polling place, Mr. Trump found a far more receptive state than Iowa, where the caucuses are restricted to Republicans and voters must sit through an extended session in the evening.

Mr. Trump’s advisers were optimistic about his prospects in the next state, South Carolina, where there is no party registration — meaning any registered voter can participate in the Republican contest — and where over half of the party’s primary electorate in 2012 did not have a college degree. But Mr. Trump will encounter some of the same challenges in the South that he did in Iowa, where voters were uneasy about his coarse language and lack of religiosity.

3 Things to Know About Ash Wednesday

What to know about the start of Lent

Feb. 18 is Ash Wednesday, which kicks off the first day of Lent and signals the approach of Easter. Here are three things to know about the day.
What’s the purpose of Ash Wednesday?
It marks first day of the 40 days of Lent, a roughly six-week period (not including Sundays) dedicated to reflection, prayer and fasting in preparation for Easter. It ends on Holy Thursday, the fifth day of Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) that marks the Last Supper. In addition to certain rules about foods and fasting, many Christians (and even non-Christians) abstain from additional foods, luxury or material goods or certain activities and habits.
Where do the ashes some people put on their face come from?
They’re obtained from the burning of the palms of the previous Palm Sunday, which occurs on the Sunday before Easter, and applied during services. Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ return to Jerusalem, when people waved palm branches to celebrate his arrival. The ashes are typically mixed with Holy Water or oil.What do the ashes mean?
The ashes, applied in the shape of a cross, are a symbol of penance, mourning and mortality. Centuries ago, participants used to sprinkle themselves with ashes and repent much more publicly, but the practice fell away sometime between the 8th-10th century before evolving into what it is today. There aren’t any particular rules about how long the ashes should be worn, but most people wear them throughout the day as a public expression of their faith and penance.