Why Marco Rubio and the Democrats are real winners in Iowa

“Donald Trump … went out and tried to criticize Ted Cruz”, he said, reiterating that such intraparty squabbles are antithetical to the common mission of everyone in the Republican primary race.

After leading in almost all of the polls heading into the Iowa caucus, the GOP frontrunner took in 24.3% of the vote to Mr Cruz’ 27.7%.

Mr Trump tweeted: “The Voter Violation certificate gave poor marks to the unsuspecting voter (grade of F) and told them to clear it up by voting for Cruz”. “This is not a time for waiting”.

As for Bernie Sanders, the socialist Democratic candidate who came a close second to Ms. Clinton, well, if you Googled the word “momentum” on Tuesday, the first hit was a picture of him.

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner and former secretary of state, was in a virtual tie with Sanders with more than 93 per cent of Iowa precincts reporting.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it”, Trump said as part of a Wednesday-morning tweet storm.

But while the party has not declared a victor yet, the Clinton campaign said it’s clearly Hillary.

And that’s exactly what Cruz did in the Iowa caucuses Monday, winning over Trump, who placed second, and Florida Sen.

Rubio came within a couple hundred supporters of piercing the impenetrable bubble thought to be around Cruz and Trump – and on the two leaders’ own political turf, no less.

Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of news, government and elections, said the results don’t replace traditional polling “any more than satellite and radar will replace the thermometer”. Carson told CNN that whoever was responsible for that “blatant lie” should be fired.

In the weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Trump held leads in nearly every statewide and national poll though his dominance in Iowa wobbled after Cruz won a key endorsement from a local evangelical Christian leader. In 2008, it only took five days for Barack Obama to lose “the big ‘mo” to Hillary Clinton between Iowa and New Hampshire.

Democrat Martin O’Malley and Republican Mike Huckabee both ended their presidential bids after barely registering any votes in the Iowa race.

A CNN/WMUR poll released on Sunday found Rubio in third with 11% support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire.