At 8:40 p.m. Pacific time, the DeMoines Register reported delegate strengths in the following way: With 93.69 percent of the Democratic vote counted, Clinton had 49.85 percent, Sanders had 49.62 percent, and O’Malley had .53 percent.
With 97.86 percent of the Republican vote counted, Cruz had 27.70 percent, Trump had 24.32 percent, and Rubio had 23.05 percent.
Hillary Clinton jumped out to a slim lead in early results from Iowa’s precinct caucuses Monday night, based on strong support from older Democrats, self-described moderates and those who put a priority on a nominee with the experience to be president.
With slightly more than 40 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton led 51 percent-48 percent.
As the official results rolled in, a poll of voters entering the evening’s caucuses provided a picture of what went into their decisionmaking. Clinton had a huge margin among those Democrats-about three-in-10-who said their biggest concern in a nominee was the right experience. By contrast, her rival for the nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, led strongly among those whose top priority was a president who “cares about people like me” or was “honest and trustworthy,” according to the entrance polls.
Among the group who said experience was the top priority, Clinton won roughly 10-1, according to the entrance poll, which was conducted for a consortium of television networks and the Associated Press. She also won heavily among a smaller group who said their top priority was to pick the nominee who could win the general election in November.
Sanders, by contrast, led by 68 percent-27 percent among the roughly one-quarter of Democrats who said they were most concerned about having a nominee who cares about people like them. He had an even larger edge among another quarter of Democrats who said their top priority was a nominee who was “honest and trustworthy.”
Reflecting Sanders’ campaign emphasis, the Vermont senator led by about 2-1 among those caucus voters who said the most important issue to them was income inequality. Clinton, by contrast, won among those who said their top concern was health care or the economy.
Sanders, an independent, was leading by about 70 percent-30 percent among those voters who identified themselves as independents. He also led among voters who identified themselves as “very liberal” and among those younger than 45.
By contrast, Clinton was winning among self-identified Democrats, as well as voters who identified themselves as “somewhat liberal” or “moderate” and those 45 and older, the entrance poll found.
The close contest reflected an intense struggle between the two campaigns here that tightened dramatically in recent weeks.
Up through nearly the end of 2015, Clinton appeared the prohibitive favorite here. Campaign aides spoke often of their determination to learn from her stinging defeat in 2008, in which she came in third in Iowa after appearing to many voters to have taken the state for granted.
This time, Clinton’s aides said, they would spare no effort to guarantee that every potential Clinton voter was identified, repeatedly contacted and delivered to the polls. The campaign has had paid staff in the state since April and by early summer boasted of having nearly 50 paid organizers here. Ultimately, they built volunteer field organizations in every one of Iowa’s 1,681 precincts, with volunteers knocking on nearly a quarter of a million doors over the last four days, according to the campaign’s data.
Since declaring her candidacy last spring, Clinton has held 106 events in the state, during 50 days of visits, according to a count by the Des Moines Register.
“We’ve done everything we can,” Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters on the eve of the caucuses.
But by January, even that massive effort appeared in danger of falling short.
Clinton’s brand of pragmatic liberalism, backed by decades of experience, has won widespread admiration from Democrats — she retains a highly favorable image within the party’s ranks. But she has failed to ignite the sort of passionate excitement that Sanders has generated, particularly among younger voters.
For a brief moment late in 2015, after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino focused voters’ attention on foreign affairs, her tenure as secretary of State and knowledge of world affairs seemed to give her an unbeatable advantage over the Vermont senator.
But in the new year, Democratic voters quickly refocused on domestic policy, and last month, a flurry of polls showed Sanders rapidly closing the gap and perhaps overtaking her here, as he widened his lead in New Hampshire, which will hold its first-in-the-nation primary next week.
Those polls significantly upped the stakes for both campaigns and dredged up bitter memories of 2008 for many in Clinton’s circle.
Back when Sanders’ insurgency seemed a quixotic run destined to end early, even a narrow Iowa loss to the front-runner might have been counted as a huge moral victory.
But as Sanders’ campaign attracted growing amounts of money and intense devotion from the party’s liberal stalwarts, moral victories began to appear less satisfying. Sanders aides began to chart paths that could actually lead to the nomination; most began with a victory in Iowa.
As his campaign treasury swelled with millions of small donations, the political independent and democratic socialist from Vermont poured resources into the state. He surpassed Clinton’s time in Iowa, spending parts of 60 days and holding 155 events, including huge rallies that drew thousands of fans, many of them young. Sanders has slightly outspent Clinton on television advertising nationwide to date, although in Iowa, Clinton spent $9 million to Sanders’ $7.4 million, as of the most recent figures compiled late last week by NBC News and the ad-tracking firm SMG Delta.
With talk of victory rising, the senator repeatedly tried to tamp down expectations in recent days, telling audiences that he could win, but only if Iowa Democrats turned out to vote in unusually large numbers.
“If we have a large voter turnout, if thousands of people — many of whom have given up on the political process, many young people who have never participated in the political process — if they come out, we’re going to win,” he said in a Monday morning interview on the “Today” show.
But regardless of either side’s spin, winning Iowa was critical to Sanders. Despite Clinton’s head start in organizing here, the state is in many ways made for his style of campaign.
Sanders’ base of support has been liberal, white Democrats. Nationwide, Clinton holds commanding leads among nonwhite voters and self-described moderate and conservative Democrats, but Sanders is close on her heels among self-described liberals and among white Democrats. And Iowa is a state that is 93 percent white and, despite its somewhat conservative image, has a Democratic electorate that leans heavily to the left.
Indeed, a survey in early January by Ann Selzer, the state’s pre-eminent pollster, found that 43 percent of the state’s likely Democratic caucusgoers described themselves as “socialist.”
Only New Hampshire and Sanders’ own Vermont have higher proportions of white liberals among their Democratic primary voters.
In debates and other forums, Sanders repeatedly has predicted that minority voters, who make up a large chunk of the Democratic vote nationwide, would move in his direction once he became better-known and seemed a plausible winner. A victory here was a significant — perhaps necessary — precondition for such a shift to occur.
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