HANOVER, N.H. – Like many New Hampshire Democrats on the eve of Tuesday’s primary, Lisa Matthews is torn. She has an idealized agenda in mind for the next president. But more than anything, she wants that next president to be someone other than Donald Trump.

“Elizabeth Warren was my first love,” said Matthews, 65, a tax preparer from Lebanon, N.H., but it’s coming down to “electability versus their policies. … Most of all, I want somebody who can beat Trump.”

Warren and Bernie Sanders: too radical? Joe Biden: too old? Pete Buttigieg: too young? Sen. Amy Klobuchar? The Minnesota senator could emerge as a Goldilocks candidate for voters seeking a tough moderate with enough time in Washington to know how it works but not so much that she has Hillary Clinton-sized baggage.

“Amy may be that sweet spot,” said Matthews, one of a number of voters who rushed from a Buttigieg rally in Lebanon to a Klobuchar rally 10 minutes away at Dartmouth College in Hanover — due diligence before casting a ballot.

It’s a volatile political cocktail.

New Hampshire voters pride themselves on making their own assessments, unswayed by the outcome of the Iowa caucuses eight days before the first primary of the nomination fight.

But even with caucus results delayed for days, Iowa has clearly informed the dynamic.

Buttigieg and Sanders fought to a near tie for first, with bragging rights going to the upstart. Warren and Biden were weak in third and fourth, and each needs good news soon. Klobuchar’s fifth place, after being overshadowed for so long, earned her a fresh look.

And she may benefit from sniping between Biden and Buttigieg that quickly escalated over the weekend.

“We are a party at risk if we nominate someone who’s never held a higher office than the mayor of South Bend, Indiana,” Biden said at the Rex Theater in downtown Manchester. “Do I think there’s a difference between getting a city budget passed, smaller than the city of Manchester, or getting three Republican votes” for the massive federal response to the 2008 financial meltdown. “Yeah, I do.”

Buttigieg has tried to deflect the belittling by painting Biden’s insults as condescension toward all of small-town America.

“People are tired of being punchlines for Washington politicians,” he said.

Sanders remains on top of the polls in New Hampshire, but rivals are treating the former South Bend, Ind., mayor as the immediate threat because his support is not so narrow, and candidates who win both Iowa and New Hampshire tend to be unstoppable.

Sanders has needled Buttigieg for taking donations from billionaire donors. At a state party dinner Saturday night, Sanders backers heckled him with chants of “Wall Street Pete!”

At the same dinner, Warren’s organizing prowess was on full display, a sea of cheering supporters in teal T-shirts and synchronized LED bracelets. But many raised their hands when a speaker asked how many in the arena were from out-of-state, and polls show her fighting with Biden for fourth place.

Biden launched a ferocious digital ad questioning Buttigieg’s preparation for high office.

The ad draws contrasts between Biden’s role passing Obamacare and an Iran nuclear deal with low-stakes challenges such as decorative lights and pet regulations that Buttigieg tackles as mayor.

“Pete Buttigieg revitalized the sidewalks of downtown South Bend,” a narrator says. “We’re electing a president.”

Momentum

The line to see Buttigieg at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua on Sunday – home of the Eagles – stretched around the building. Some waited two hours in a 22-degree chill.

“It’s encouraging,” said Beth Cole, 48, a medical assistant from Nashua, as she waited to get inside. with more than 1,200 others.

Voters piled out of the gym scooping up yard signs, and more than a few averred that they want to support a winner.

Four hours later, Klobuchar packed roughly the same number of people into the gym at Nashua’s Fairgrounds Middle School, a short drive away, as they tussle for primacy among voters who shun Warren and Sanders as too divisive or radical.

Buttigieg repeated his retort to Biden’s attacks.

“Mayors have to get things done. … You’ll never hear about mayors printing their own dollars,” he told a thousand or so people in Nashua on Sunday, contrasting the budget constraints on local government with Washington’s free-spending ways.

Biden’s jabs drew complaints about negativity, though voters concede that Buttigieg’s lack of national experience is an Achilles heel.

“He’s desperate. It’s sad,” said Lori Douglas, a doctor of physical therapy. “It’s not productive. … Buttigieg has young fresh ideas and the energy to see them through.”

Douglas is 38, the same age as the former Indiana mayor, who would be the youngest president in history.

Buttigieg has something Biden and most other rivals don’t: support across a spectrum of ages and demographics. Biden’s support skews older. Sanders relies heavily on the idealism of youth.

“A lot of my friends are Warren people or Bernie people,” said Andrew Harrison, 18, a high school senior who’ll be voting for the first time this year. He’s looking for a centrist, though. Biden was his initial pick, but “he doesn’t do well in debates. He doesn’t seem to have a straight head anymore. I would look at Klobuchar if she was doing better.”

Tyler McAfee, a 27-year-old lawyer from Nashua, described himself as a Republican willing to support any of the Democrats other than Sanders. He’s leaning toward Andrew Yang but considering Buttigieg and Klobuchar, too.

“Once Donald Trump has been purged by the Republican Party I will probably go back. But until then I will vote for Democrats, and it hurts to do that, but he has nuclear weapons,” he said.

McAfee isn’t overly impressed by Buttigieg’s level of experience. “Mayor’s better than nothing. But South Bend – it’s like voting for the mayor of Nashua to become president. It’s kind of crazy.” Even so, he’s turned off by Biden’s attacks. “That’s the negativity that we need to get away from. We need positive people as president.”

At Keene State College, actor Michael J. Fox warmed up a large crowd Saturday for Buttigieg with a poke at Trump. “We have a very stable Rhodes scholar,” he said. “That’s better than a very stable genius.”

Later, at Lebanon High School, Buttigieg packed a gym with over 500 voters, many still unsure about him but eager for a look at the “it” candidate.

“We’ve got a president who fires war heroes and pardons war criminals,” he quipped.

“He made a great showing in Iowa, especially for a young gay man in the Midwest,” said Sven Karlen, 76, a retired financial adviser from Hanover, where Klobuchar drew a smaller but similarly enthused crowd.

Klobuchar raised $3 million in the 48 hours after the Friday night debate. That’s her best haul yet, and a sign of traction as she positions herself as more seasoned than Buttigieg, more energetic than Biden, and an agile debater who won’t let Trump slip away in the fall.

“His three words would be `divide and demoralize.’ My three words would be `unite and lead,’” she told crowds.

Andrea Colgan, 65, retired treasurer of Lyme, a small town outside Hanover, was eager to vote for Klobuchar. As it happens, her sister in Des Moines, Iowa, caucused for Klobuchar last Monday night.

“Everybody says Amy is great, but they’re not sure she can win the nomination. Maybe if we all vote for her, she can,” Colgan said. “I’m looking for a moderate who’s intelligent, non-bullying and a grownup.”

Biden gasping

In New Hampshire as in Iowa, the expectations game can have greater impact than the outcome.

Warren and Sanders, from neighboring states, live too close to fail.

Biden managed to deflate expectations even more than his uninspired fourth-place finish in Iowa.

“I took a hit in Iowa and I’ll probably take a hit here,” he declared at the outset of Friday night’s televised debate at St. Anselm College – an unusually blunt prediction that could prove a tactically brilliant bit or an instance of a candidate kicking himself when he’s down.

For roughly a year, he’s been the front-runner nationally. With the disappointing finish in Iowa, the claim of “electability” he has cultivated is fast slipping away.

On the stump, Biden wavers between combative and lethargic. He reads remarks that others would deliver off the cuff, turning pages on the lectern or staring at the teleprompter for long stretches.

At the Rex, Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan and others revved up the crowd – and then, inexplicably, it took another 45 minutes for Biden to appear, as the energy drained from the room.

When he emerged, Biden fumbled.

“I will preserve, and I will in fact prevail,” he vowed, no doubt intending to say he would persevere.

He hit Buttigieg as green, and Sanders for being a “socialist — a democratic socialist” whose nomination would doom Democrats’ hopes of wresting control of the Senate. It wasn’t a bad performance, but it was over quickly after an inordinate delay.

“He’s got the experience. He’s got the go-to to mend fences around the world. Hopefully he can bring back the United States so we’re not a laughingstock anymore,” said Louise Gosselin, 71, a retired elections worker from Manchester.

Will Stewart, 40, executive director of a nonprofit that aims to retain younger New Hampshire residents, came away thinking hard about whether Buttigieg is up to the job.

“I appreciate that he’s a fresh face. He’s obviously super intelligent. He knows the issues backward and forward,” he said, but “that’s my biggest concern about him.”