U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz finished in first place in the Iowa caucuses, the first actual votes cast in the 2016 presidential election race. The win comes a day after his campaign finance report showed nearly $19 million in cash on hand.
As of 9:45 p.m., Cruz had 28% of the vote, leading Donald Trump (24%) and Marco Rubio (23%). Ben Carson finished in a distant fourth place with less than 10%. Rand Paul (4%) and Jeb Bush (3%) were the only other candidates above 2%.
Compared to the final Des Moines Register poll going into the caucus, Cruz (+5) and Rubio (+8) showed the biggest improvements while Trump (-4) exhibited the largest drop in support.
Iowa Democrats appeared almost evenly divided between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, at least based on the way the Iowa Democratic Party reports results. The actual vote total for the candidates is not released. Instead, the “vote total” is the sum of precinct-level delegates awarded to the candidates.
Mike Huckabee (R) and Martin O’Malley (D) suspended their campaigns after poor performances in Iowa.
