Running for a U.S. Senate seat, Larry Hamm, chair of the Bernie Sanders campaign in New Jersey,

exulted on the night when his candidate scored a (very) close victory over Pete Buttigieg in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary for president.

Hamm is running in the Democratic Primary for the seat currently occupied by U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ).

“I think this confirms that Bernie Sanders at this stage is the frontrunner,” Hamm told InsiderNJ. “He got the most votes in Iowa on the first count; and he won New Hampshire.

“We’ll see what happens with the delegate count in Iowa,” he added.

South Carolina?

“I think his chances are good to win there,” said Hamm. “We’re seeing that Joe Biden’s so-called lock on the black vote is a mythology. His support among blacks plummeted by, I think, half. Some people are saying that [former New York Mayor Mike] Bloomberg dropping a lot of money in there may be one factor, but we saw in Iowa that just about half the people in Iowa who voted for Bernie were people of color: African Americans, Hispanics and others.”

An audio clip surfaced today of Bloomberg saying he deployed “all the cops in minority neighborhoods” because that’s where they’ll find “all the crime” while defending “stop-and-frisk” in 2015.

Hamm said he’s glad it came out.

He decried the billionaire’s entire fledgling campaign for president.

“It’s obscene that Bloomberg thinks he can buy an election,” said the U.S. Senate candidate. “There is no precedent for the amount of money he has spent in such a short period of time. What is it so far – $300 million? That’s more than all the other candidates combined. This is a realization of citizens’ worst fears. This is anti-democratic, emblematic of plutocracy. I wish he would get out of the race and put his funds into organizations fighting voter suppression. It’s megalomaniacal. It’s not enough for him to control his empire; he’s got to control the federal government, too? It’s sociopathic behavior.

“I’m livid,” Hamm added.

As for the implications of Sanders’ victory tonight, Hamm reflected on what it means for his own efforts.

“I think the implications for New Jersey is that bernie Sanders has a very good chance to win this state,” he said. “Emerson had done a poll in New Jersey in January and it showed Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden tied for first place. This was before Iowa. So he has a very good chance here to win. I’m going to do everything in my power to make that happen.

“It also improves my chances because my campaign is aligned with the Sanders Campaign,” he said. “That bodes well.”

While Hamm celebrated the win of his presidential candidate, another Booker rival dropped out of the contest today.

Attorney Stuart Meissner pulled the plug on his Republican candidacy for Senate.

According to NJ.com’s Jonathan Salant:

Meissner made the decision after several Republican county committees endorsed one of his Republican primary opponents, Rik Mehta, a pharmacist and lawyer.

“The narrow path to victory in the Republican primary by seeking the party lines in each of the counties does not afford us a chance to success in such efforts based on recent events,” Meissner wrote to supporters. “Further, we currently do not have the funding to launch a successful ad campaign primary fight from outside the party lines.”