Alfonse D'Amato

So far, this election makes for good theater

Posted

There has never been more drama in politics. The main characters are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and neither scored the victories they were expecting in the Iowa caucuses. Republicans showed up in record numbers: Some 185,000 voters took part.

Ted Cruz rode the overwhelming support of conservative and mostly evangelical Republican voters to victory, receiving 51,666 votes, or 28 percent. Trump received 45,427 votes, or 24 percent, and finished second.

Many political analysts view Sen. Marco Rubio, who came in third, as the strategic winner in Iowa. Rubio received 43,165 votes, narrowly finishing behind Trump. This strong finish has allowed him to make a case to Republican donors and elected officials around the country that he is the strongest candidate. Since Iowa, he has received the endorsements of former candidates Sen. Rick Santorum and Gov. Bobby Jindal and several members of Congress.

The exit polls in Iowa indicated that there were several factors that led to these results. Cruz received the overwhelming support of conservative and evangelical voters. According to a Politico poll, nearly two in five caucus-goers described themselves as “very conservative.”

From day one, Cruz pushed hard, and was able to capture that audience; his efforts paid off. Going forward, however, Cruz will have trouble in less conservative states. Polls indicate that he was able to capture only 19 percent of voters who consider themselves “somewhat conservative.”

On the Democratic side, it became clear once again that Hillary Clinton isn’t a strong candidate, and is going to have the fight of her life to defeat Bernie Sanders. Hillary narrowly beat him, winning 701 precincts to Sanders’ 697, six of them by a coin flip.

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