Andy Burnham compared himself to Hillary Clinton on Wednesday morning, following the New Hampshire presidential primary in the United States.
The shadow home secretary joked he could "safely say that I know how Hillary Clinton is feeling this morning", after her defeat in the crucial New England state to the left-wing Bernie Sanders.
Sanders won 60% of the Democratic vote compared to just 38% for Clinton.
Burnham was initially the frontrunner in the race to succeed Ed Miliband as Labour leader, but he was eventually pushed into a distant second by a surging Jeremy Corbyn.
Clinton, the former senator, First Lady and Secretary of State, now has an unexpected fight on her hands for the Democrat nomination. She long expected a relatively easy path to becoming the party's nominee.
On the Republican side, billionaire Donald Trump won easily - securing his first victory of the race having lost Iowa to Ted Cruz.