For Donald Trump, for one night, there was so much winning.

The billionaire political novice on Tuesday posted a decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, a once-unthinkable first for an enterprise built on the promise of putting America on top and turning politics on its head.

Restive Democrats had their own act of anti-establishment defiance, lining up behind Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, while delivering a broad rejection of Hillary Clinton's second bid for the White House.

The results offered little clarity to the nomination battles likely to stretch on into the spring — giving the parties' establishment fits and testing voters' commitment to the outsider excitement.

A night of victory speeches from a reality TV tycoon and avowed democratic socialist was all-but unimaginable six months ago, before outsider fever gripped both parties' search for a president.

Trump's campaign seized the top slot in New Hampshire and never relented, despite rivals dumping millions into advertising and late signs that Rubio's strong third-place showing in Iowa had earned him a second look.

Ted Cruz, the Iowa winner and a favorite of social conservatives, proved unable to win over New Hampshire's more moderate brand of Republican.

[...] on Tuesday Sanders' coalition was strikingly broad, cutting across both ideological and demographic lines, according to an exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the Associated Press and the television networks.

The poll found Sanders won a majority of votes from independents, voters under 45, self-identified liberals, moderates, men, and perhaps most cutting for Clinton, who is striving to be the first woman president, women.