Hillary Clinton narrowly wins Democratic Iowa caucuses

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has been declared the narrow victor of the Iowa caucuses over Senator Bernie Sanders. The results of the Democratic race put pressure on Clinton to siphon support away from Sanders, who has won over politically leftleaning voters with his promises to take on Wall Street and start fresh with healthcare reform.

The lawmaker, who smiled broadly as he addressed supporters, is leading in New Hampshire, home to next week’s second contest, but trails Clinton in other states such as SC, which holds the third contest. However, Iowa does have a better track record in picking the Democratic nominee, including an upset win by President Barrack Obama in 2008 over Hillary Clinton.

Without declaring a victor, Iowa Democratic Chair Dr. Andy McGuire called the results “the closest in Iowa Democratic caucus history”.

From an original field of 17 candidates, the raucous race for the GOP presidential nod has come down to three following the Iowa caucuses – Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, analysts said Tuesday.

“As I think about what happened tonight, I think the people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, to the economic establishment and, by the way, to the media establishment”, he continued, thanking Iowa for starting a “political revolution”.

“We will go on to get the Republican nomination, and we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie or whoever the hell they throw up there”, he said.

Sanders had hoped to replicate Obama’s pathway to the presidency by using a victory in Iowa to catapult his passion and ideals of “democratic socialism” deep into the primaries. This will likely result in a lopsided victory for Trump in New Hampshire, setting up further victories for him in Nevada and SC later this month where he has double-digit leads.

“I think Rubio will get what he needed out of Iowa, which is to come into New Hampshire as one of the stories”, Dante Scala, associate professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told the Los Angeles Times.

Sanders’ campaign director, Jeff Weaver, said he did not “anticipate we are going to contest” specific results.

It takes 2,382 delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president. On Monday night, a close approximation of the delegates won by Clinton and Sanders was known. According to the AP, Clinton’s advantage is in her number of “superdelegates” – the party officials who can switch their support to the candidate of their choice.

So dominant was the deadlocked battle between Clinton and Sanders that Martin O’Malley became one of the first casualties of the night. Mrs. Clinton won 700.59 delegates, while Sen.