Hillary Clinton won the Iowa democratic caucus with 49.9% and Ted Cruz won the Iowa republican caucus with 27.7%. The final poll taken the day before the vote had Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders in the lead of their respective party. The Clinton-Sanders match up could not have been any closer to a tie. Clinton won 21 delegates and Sanders 20.
The Iowa results ended four candidates campaign, three republicans, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and U.S. Senator Rand Paul. One democrat in former Gov. Mark O'Mally who all announced they were suspending their campaign. The New Hampshire primary scheduled for next week will probably claim more once the results are in. It was estimated that about 187,000 Iowa caucus voters cast their votes which represents only 8% of Iowa's electorate. That is not a good representative number and is an example why the primaries are more important in the nominating process.
Republican Donald Trump, a non office holder came in second with 24.3% and that was a larger percentage cast for Paul, Bush, Christie, Santorum, Kasich and Huckabee combined who are all office holders or former office holders. And Trump admitted the fact that he only had a small staff of workers working Iowa.
The pundits, especially those on the Cable networks are busy telling the public what happened in Iowa and as usual are just filling up air time with the same old cliches and hype. The best news out of the Iowa caucus was the closeness in the democratic race. The democratic debates helped the caucus voters understand the positions of Clinton and Sanders because of the substance of those debates. That was lacking in the republican debates and as a result the caucus system was all over the lot.
The New Hampshire primary will be a different story because all eligible voters will be allowed to vote their choice. What happened in Iowa will not matter. The polls at the moment show Trump and Sanders with large margins ahead of their opponents but the candidates have a chance to change that because they will have an opportunity to have their base turn out at the polls to cast their ballots.
The primaries, the debates and the campaigns will be interesting to see how it all unfolds and who will be the survivors. The news media will continue to pick sides but the people still have the last word with their vote and take that responsibility as a serious challenge.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
