Update (11:20 am.m ET) - The Democratic party of Iowa has declared former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the winner of the Iowa Caucus, as she narrowly edged Bernie Sanders. While Clinton will get more delegates, Sanders is the real winner, as he was able to prove that he can be a viable candidate in the race for the White House.
The road to the White House began on Monday night with the Iowa Caucuses, and Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, has been declared the winner of the Republican Caucus in Iowa. The Democratic race is still too close to call, with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders within one percent of each other, while Martin O’Malley was in third place with less than one percent of the vote. Coincidentally, reports from CNN and the Associated Press have him suspending his campaign after the Iowa Caucuses.
On the Republican side, Cruz surprisingly won the caucus with 27.7% of the vote, with Donald Trump, who was leading all of the public polls coming into tonight, in second place with 24.4% of the vote. Marco Rubio rounded out the top three with 23.0% of the vote.
“This is the moment they said would never happen,” Rubio said after his third place finish. “For months they told us we had no chance because we were too optimistic, they told me that I needed to wait my turn. But tonight in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a message, after seven years of Barack Obama, we are not waiting to take our country back. This is a time where we need a president who will really preserve, protect, and enforce the constitution, not one who will undermine it.”
The Republican race is what is the biggest surprise, as Trump, who has led most of January in the public polls, is currently in second place, behind Cruz, who was in second place in the polls. Rubio, who is in third place, is right where he expected himself to be after he released a statement early Monday saying that a third place finish would be a successful night for him.
The Republican race was not as close as it seems from the percentages, as Cruz has 43,550 votes, while Trump has 38,358 votes. The big race is the race for second place, as Trump only leads third place Rubio by just over 2,000 votes.
The Democratic race was surprising in its own way, as it is closer than expected. Coming into the night, none of the polls had the race as close as it is. Clinton does have the lead, as she has 50.1% of the vote, while Senator Sanders has 49.2% of the vote. Unlike the Republican party, the Democratic party does not give out the actual vote totals..
VAVEL USA will update here when the full results of the Democratic race are known.
