On Tuesday, Feb. 1 the final votes were counted in the Iowa caucus, revealing that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came out on top for the Republicans and Hilary Clinton narrowly found herself in first for the Democrats. The Iowa caucuses have always been the center of public interest, as they are the first major event in the long process of nominating a president and the first real measurement of voter sentiment.
The extremely tight race between Secretary of State Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was officially announced at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 2. The fight in Iowa only came down to 0.3 percent difference in points, which was a surprise to some who believed Clinton would take the state with more ease.
Jeff Weaver, Sander’s campaign manager, told Wolf Blizter that they were happy with the results despite a Clinton victory, “We went toe to toe with the establishment.” Several months ago, Sanders was some 30 points behind Clinton in Iowa. Eighty-four percent of democrats under 30 voted for Sanders, while Clinton held her ground with middle-aged voters.
The two presidential hopefuls faced off Wednesday night in CNN’s Democratic Town Hall in New Hampshire, where Sanders currently leads in the polls. The New Hampshire caucus will occur on Feb. 9, followed by Nevada Feb.20 and South Carolina Feb. 27. Sanders missed out on non-white voters in Iowa, and will need to cover significant ground with these voters to keep competing with Clinton.
On the Republican side, Sen. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucus at 27.6 percent, followed by mogul Donald Trump at 24.3 percent, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in a close third of 23.1 percent. All eyes were on Trump in the week prior to the caucus as he made the unprecedented move to not attend the Republican debate due to an ongoing feud with Fox News and debate moderator Megyn Kelly. Despite this choice, Trump was still polling as the number one candidate until the results of the caucus were officially announced.
Conservative Cruz successfully gained the evangelical vote in Iowa to edge out Trump, but on Wednesday the businessman turned politician accused Cruz of stealing votes. A tweet on Trump’s page reads: “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.” Cruz quickly fired back in his own tweet, showing the ever-reaching impact social media has had on this election year.
South Carolina is the next stop for the Republicans as the three top candidates fight to gain ground in the primaries being held on Saturday, Feb. 20.
CNN and The LA Times contributed to this report.
Photo courtesy of Becky McCray/Flickr
