The Iowa caucuses this year showed the great divide in political parties that is now prevalent.
The Iowa caucuses—which took place on Monday, Feb. 1, 2016—are an electoral event at which residents from the state gather to elect delegates. The 99 counties that make up the state of Iowa each select the delegates for Iowa’s Congressional District Convention and the state convention. The Iowa Caucus has a very different system than the primary election, to which almost all the other fifty states abide by.
Donald Trump, a republican candidate, famous for his business successes and his reality television show “The Apprentice” finished second in the caucus, even though he has lead public opinion polls in Iowa for months at this point. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the junior United States senator from Texas, won in Iowa, but the story does not end there. Although he won with 27.6 percent to Donald Trump’s 24.3 percent, it is being said that he won in Iowa because of the highly conservative population in the state.
Florida’s Marco Rubio was quoted saying, “For months, for months they told us we had no chance. For months they told us because we offer too much optimism in a time of anger, we had no chance.” Rubio was initially condemned for the lack of time he had spent in Iowa, working to increase voter support for his campaign.
Previously to the caucus, the Carson campaign sent out an email that made accusations at CNN that said they were spreading “false or misleading information.” Cruz was quoted saying, “That was a news story CNN had posted, and our political team passed it on to our supporters. It was breaking news that was relevant.” He also added, ““Now, subsequently, the Carson campaign put out another statement saying that he was not, in fact, suspending his campaign, and I apologized to Ben for our team not passing on their subsequent clarification.”
Young voters were especially involved in the 2016 Democratic Caucuses, both this past week and also in 2008 when Barack Obama won them. According to entrance polls, 18 percent of the people who attended the Democratic Caucus were between the ages of 17-29 and another 17 percent were between the ages of 30-44. The majority of the younger group attended the event in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Even with Sanders young voter support, Secretary Hillary Clinton has been able to declare an early victory over Sanders at the Iowa caucus for the Democratic party; her campaign has stated that “After thorough reporting—and analysis—of results, there is no uncertainty and Secretary Clinton has clearly won the most national and state delegates.” While factual, their statement fails to bring to light how close the votes were with Clinton only leading Sanders by 0.3 percent.
At this point in the electoral process Cruz’s main competitors to focus on are Trump and Rubio. All other republican candidates are more than 10 percent behind.
