Iowa Caucus Results: Cruz Defeats Trump, Clinton & Sanders “Virtual Tie”

Monday night’s presidential primary caucuses delivered a decisive victory to Senator Ted Cruz of the Republican party while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Senator Bernie Sanders essentially tied in the Democratic race.

The Republican race saw Cruz outperform Donald Trump with 27.7% of the votes, while Senator Marco Rubio came in a close third with 23.1%. Trump received 24.3% of the caucus votes while Dr. Ben Carson and Senator Rand Paul wallowed in the single digits with 9.3% and 4.5%, respectively. NBC News officially predicted Cruz as the winner around 10:22 p.m.

The Democratic race was impossibly close right up until the very end, with Clinton’s lead waning to 0.4% around 11:05 p.m. Around midnight, with about 95% of the votes tallied, it appeared that Clinton would climb out of her hole, scoring around 49.8% of the final vote with Sanders claiming 49.6%. Tuesday morning gave Clinton a 0.1% boost with 99.9% of the votes counted, leaving her the technical winner with 49.9% and Sanders with 49.5%. The razor-thin margin here indicates less of a victory for either candidate and more of a draw, for all practical purposes. Regardless of the technical amount of delegates awarded (22 for Clinton and 21 for Sanders), the Iowa results saw Sanders surpass expectations, creeping up on Clinton in a key primary race.

The Iowas caucus witnessed the suspension of the campaigns of former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R), who both resigned after dismal results.

The next major milestone in the 2016 primary races will be the New Hampshire primary, to be held on Tuesday, February 9. The latest polls indicate a comfortable victory for Vermont Senator Sanders in New Hampshire, with the Huffington Post predicting a 55% majority. 

Trump wins New Hampshire according to latest polls, with the Huffington Post predicting a plurality of 34%.

Polls for the Iowa race predicted a tight victory for Clinton but a Trump victory over Cruz.

Maryland will host it’s primary election on Tuesday, April 26. Maryland residents can register to vote online and request an absentee ballot here.