"I just felt like [my sewing] is a gift that I could put it towards other people," she said.

'Financially, it's one of the biggest things that's ever happened to this small town,' the mayor said.

By night's end, New Hampshire could begin culling the Democrats' unwieldy 2020 class, which still features nearly a dozen candidates battling for the chance to take on U.S. President Donald Trump fall.

Trump, on a high after his acquittal last week on impeachment charges, launched an assault on the Democrats who tried to remove him from office, calling the episode a "pathetic partisan crusade.''

Friday’s debate in New Hampshire — coming four days before the state’s primary — offers new opportunity and risk for the shrinking pool of White House hopefuls.

The technical glitches plaguing the first contest on the 2020 nominating calendar have made an already complicated candidate selection process even more complicated.

The chaos surrounding the reporting breakdown has undermined the impact of Iowa's election, which typically rewards winners with a surge of momentum heading into subsequent primary contests.

The political universe has been turned upside down by the failure of the Iowa caucuses.

Biden insisted he had a "good night" in Iowa even as he trailed the top moderate candidate, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and the leading progressive, Bernie Sanders, according to initial returns from 62 per cent of precincts.

The results followed 24 hours of chaos as technical issues marred the contest, forcing state officials to apologize and raising questions about Iowa's traditional place atop the presidential primary calendar.