With storms blasting the Midwest on Monday night, caucus workers in Iowa tallied votes that left Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Ted Cruz with slightly more delegates than their opponents, according to Politico.
While their margins of victory were small, the political momentum that comes with them could be substantial. Clinton appears to have avoided reliving her 2008 Iowa upset defeat by the slightest of margins. From Politico:
Clinton was awarded 699.57 state delegate equivalents, versus 695.49 for Sanders, Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire said in a statement. The results were the closest in state Democratic caucus history, and 171,109 Democratic voters turned out to caucus.
The complex caucus system means that, according to Politico and AP numbers, Clinton finishes with 28 delegates to challenger Sen. Sanders’ 21, though those numbers could be revisited at Iowa’s state party convention in June. Two delegates remain “uncommitted,” and one had not been allocated early Tuesday, according to the news source’s latest numbers.
Democratic former Gov. Martin O’Malley withdrew from the race while results were being counted.
For Cruz, the Texas senator will be looking to buck the trend of recent GOP-Iowa-winners who faltered over their party’s next primary contests. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won Iowa in 2008, withdrew Monday a la O’Malley, and former Sen. Rick Santorum is expected to do the same thing. He won the state in 2012, but his campaign never got off the ground this year.
With 27 of 30 delegates reported by the AP and Politico by 7 a.m Tuesday, Cruz stood to pick up at least eight delegates, and his chief rivals Donald Trump (seven) and Sen. Marco Rubio (seven) faired only slightly worse. In many ways, Rubio’s showing outpaced his poll numbers and solidified him as the primary GOP “mainstream” moderate candidate.
GOP turnout in Iowa also set a record for the party. According to Fox News, about 182,000 Republicans caucused Monday, about 60,000 more than ever had before in the Hawkeye State.
Cruz gave a lengthy “victory” speech highlighted by a timer on Politico.com.
While he was giving his speech, Cruz also sent out an email to fundraise off of his victory, a typical campaign procedure, though the timing Monday highlighted the usually unspoken fact that candidate don’t write their own first-person emails. The message said Cruz’s Iowa victory drained his campaign’s coffers (formatting his):
In order to win in Iowa tonight, we had to dig deep into our campaign accounts…all but depleting our political budget.
Even worse — we are now behind in the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina. If we stop for even a moment to rest, we risk losing the momentum that we’ve worked so hard to build.
After the hard-fought battle in Iowa, I must raise over ONE MILLION DOLLARS in the next 24 hours or I risk wasting our Iowa victory — the victory you and the volunteers have worked SO HARD to help me secure.
The next primary for both parties will be Tuesday, Feb. 9, in New Hamphire. From there, the calendar differs slightly for Republican and Democrat candidates.
Sooners on the scene for Iowa caucuses
Students with OU’s Gaylord College Of Journalism & Mass Communication were all a-Twitter Monday night. A delegation of 14 JMC students has been in Iowa for the past two and a half weeks covering the presidential election in general and Iowa caucuses in particular.
In turn, the students had the opportunity to report on an event in the national stage. Huffington Post has been running their coverage. Not bad for one of NonDoc’s early contributors.
