When Fox News called John Kasich’s second-place finish in New Hampshire at 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, a fairly sedate cheer went up from the crowd gathered at the primary night party in a Marriott conference room here. People dressed in outdoor vests milled around drinking white wine and occasionally engaging in an “O-H-I-O” chant, but mostly politely biding time until their man from Westerville, Ohio, showed up.

Donald Trump’s night was big (he won the state with 35 percent of the vote), but former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu wasn’t wrong when he introduced Kasich — who finally took the stage at around 10 p.m. — as “the story coming out of New Hampshire.”

More pointedly, the story is that Kasich, flat-voweled and a little crusty, is the anti-Trump.

And not just because of the positive campaign narrative his team has been pushing, though that’s part of it: “Maybe, just maybe, we’re turning the page on a dark part of American politics,” Kasich said in his primary night speech, touting his 16 percent support in New Hampshire. “Because tonight, the light overcame the dark.”