Iowa Caucuses are underway

D 55% reporting
Clinton 51%
Sanders 48%

R 25% reporting
Cruz 30%
Trump 27%
Rubio 19%
Carson 10%

I’m not sure how happy I am that Cruz is in the lead, but if it means Trump doesn’t win, then I guess I’m happy.

A few months ago, the only thing that would have surprised me is how horribly Bush is doing. What a disaster for him.

Races tighten!

D 64% reporting
Clinton 51%
Sanders 49%

R 43% reporting
Cruz 29%
Trump 26%
Rubio 20%
Carson 10%

Questions:

  1. Can Sanders catch up and make it a tie in the overall vote? Would that give us a spate of ‘Hillary’s collapsing!’ stories?

  2. Can Rubio catch Trump? His share is growing while Cruz and Trump’s shares are shrinking as more precincts come in.

Please tell me where I can see poll results on a smartphone. Forbes has Trump ahead by 9%, so…

OTOH, this is the GOP Caucus, so we won’t know who won till next month.

CNN says they have results for all devices. How true that is, I’ve no idea.

With what his PAC spent on advertising, he could have bought each of his Iowa caucus voters a car.

Does this mean “The End” for Jeb! ?

Is Trump outperforming your expectations by a lot?

Rubio closing!

R 50% reporting!
Cruz: 29%
Trump: 25%
Rubio: 21%
Carson: 10%

D 65% reporting
Clinton 51%
Sanders 49%

D 69.2% reporting
Clinton 51%
Sanders 49%

O’Malley is at 0.6%. Idealogically where would his supporters go if he drops out.

It may be interesting to note here for what it’s worth that in the last two election cycles, the Democratic caucus winner became the nominee, while the Republican winner was an evangelical nutjob – Huckabee and Santorum were the winners in 2008 and 2012. So a Cruz win here wouldn’t be a great predictor, and I have no doubt that the Donald will find a way to spin a 2nd place finish as a “victory”.

R 60% reporting!
Cruz 28%
Trump 25%
Rubio 22%
Carson 10%

Man, it’ll be a huge upset if Rubio knocks Trump into 3rd. Trump’ll have a hell of a time spinning that positively.

Probably Clinton. In the end, O’Malley’s an east coast establishment guy.

That Carson 10% is interesting. The counties that started out big for Carson are going to Cruz. Any guesses on what that means?

That is what I was thinking, Huckabee and Santorum won in the past and they never got anywhere.

In 2008 Obama won Iowa, then Clinton won NH so it was really not obvious which one would get it just based on the early primaries.

I tend to think Clinton will win the primary because of her support among non-white voters. Bernie doesn’t seem to have that big of a support outside of liberals.

Trump is still well positioned, likely to win NH and SC handily. Cruz really needed this to last him to Super Tuesday and Rubio is best positioned to get the not Trump or Cruz bulk with the curveball being the possibility that another rival to the spot rises from NH (e.g. Kasich).

If Trumps drops down to third though … that would be huuuuge!

The Washington Post is reporting that O’Malley is dropping out.

Here’s hoping he gets a cabinet post or something. He’s reportedly a really nice guy. Maybe HHS or something.

As for Carson-Cruz? It’s most interesting that Carson has stayed at 10% all night long. If Cruz is gaining at Carson’s cost maybe Carson’s supporters - he’s seemed disinterested lately - are finding Cruz the acceptable extremist instead of Trump.

Assuming the numbers won’t change much from this point, Trump will have a strong 2nd place finish which is really a win among non-evangelicals and spinning that as a positive actually has some justification. The 2nd place candidate in 2012 was Romney.

Yuuuuge!

R 75% reporting
Cruz 28%
Trump 25%
Rubio 22%
Carson 10%

D 73% reporting
Clinton 50%
Sanders 49%

Nailbiter, my friends.

And I am such an election dork.