Voters still want change

With populations that are more than 90 percent white, Iowa and New Hampshire lack the diversity to be considered bellwethers in a presidential race: Minorities make up nearly a quarter of the national population. But the messages implied by the outcomes in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are in sync with what the rest of the country is feeling.

For months prior to the early contests, polls reflected high anxiety among Americans, many of whom are upset about their economy, their government, and their children's unpredictable future. Many voters craving an alternative to status-quo Washington politics believe Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders can satisfy their hunger.

After losing the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz last week, Trump fairly obliterated the Republican field in New Hampshire on Tuesday, winning 35 percent of the vote. John Kasich finished second with 16 percent. Poorer finishes, in sixth and seventh place respectively, led Gov. Christie and Carly Fiorina to suspend their campaigns.

Sanders won New Hampshire's Democratic primary, taking 60 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Hillary Clinton, who had beat Sanders by less than a percentage point in Iowa. But Clinton should do better in more diverse states, including South Carolina, where the Democratic primary will be held on Feb. 27. Current and former members of the state's Legislative Black Caucus have lined up to endorse her. The mothers of two black men killed by white police officers in separate incidents, Eric Garner and Dontre Hamilton, plan to campaign for her in the Palmetto State.

Clinton may need similar help with a group of voters one would expect to be in her fold already. New Hampshire exit polls showed that nearly 80 percent of women under 30 voted for Sanders. Unrelenting criticism of Clinton's handling as secretary of state of the Benghazi terrorist attack, her storage of sensitive emails on a home computer, and her acceptance of Wall Street money have hurt her. "There's just something I don't trust about Hillary Clinton," one young woman told a CNN reporter, calling Bernie Sanders "a genuine soul."

It's hard to apply the word genuine to the bombastic Trump, but his supporters apparently believe in him. The withdrawal of Fiorina and Christie - who was running out of money while neglecting his day job running New Jersey - leaves Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Ben Carson in the hunt for the Republican nomination while Sanders and Clinton go mano a mano for the Democratic mantle.

By July, when the Republicans hold their convention in Cleveland and the Democrats come to Philadelphia, the respective party nominees are likely to be decided. If the voting in New Hampshire and Iowa is any indication, each party's nominee will have to convince voters that if he or she is elected, Washington won't be the same.