Cruz comes up trumps in Iowa while Democrats virtually tie

Ms Clinton won all six coin tosses in Newton, Ames, West Branch and Davenport, as well as two precincts in Des Moines, the Des Moines Register reported.

Hillary Clinton won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, according to the Iowa Democratic Party. At 12:35 a.m. ET, Clinton held just a four-delegate advantage over Sanders.

But with 95 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was clinging to a razor thin lead with 49.9 percent against to 49.6 percent for Sanders.

Ted Cruz’s triumph Monday night was important for many reasons – and not least because it affirmed that the laws of American politics have not yet been rewritten wholesale by a billionaire reality-TV huckster. Marco Rubio (R-FL) trailed behind at 24 and 23 percent, respectively.

In an uncharacteristically gracious and brief concession speech, Trump said: “So on June 16th when we started this journey there were 17 candidates”.

“We’ll take this one”, she said.

In both the states, Trump is leading by a huge margin, according to latest opinion polls. It’s going to be a great week, and we’re going to be up here next week. “You’re special. We will be back many, many times, in fact, I think I might come here and buy a farm, I love it. Okay?”

But there are some warning signs for Cruz in states with fewer conservative voters: His vote share declined precipitously among more moderate voters. It paid off. He showed significant support – 43 percent – among self-identified conservatives and evangelicals – 33 percent. “For months, they told us we had no chance”, a jubilant Rubio said.

In his victory speech, Senator Cruz said: “Tonight is a victory for the grassroots”.

The former Democratic congressman from MI who is an avid tweeter quickly weighed in on Cruz’s victory. High turnout was supposed to help Trump who was attracting lower-propensity voters to his rallies.

“I will be our nominee because of what you have done here in this great state”, he continued, pledging to “unify this party and the conservative movement”.

“They told me that I needed to wait my turn, that I needed to wait in line”.

On a winter night, Iowans are meeting in party caucuses and express their preferences for the Democratic and Republican candidates in the race for the 2016 nominations.

“What a night. An unbelievable night”.

The former secretary of state, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, eased their nerves ahead of the caucuses with a walk around Gray’s Lake in Des Moines, leaving staffers behind.

Clinton said she was breathing a “big sigh of relief” after the results.

Even if she loses there, Mrs Clinton is still widely expected to win the Democratic Party’s nomination in coming weeks thanks to expected strong support from African Americans, Hispanics and women in southern states. The tone of his address to supporters suggested as much.

“Nine months ago, we came to this attractive state, we had no political organisation, we had no money, we had no name recognition, and we were taking on the most powerful political organisation in the United States of America”, Sanders said.

Clinton’s campaign responded nearly immediately to welcome the victory.

Clinton had been looking to lay to rest the demons of 2008, when she lost in Iowa to now-President Barack Obama, and pursue her quest for history by dealing a solid blow to her upstart challenger.

“Honestly we just got off the plane, we don’t know enough to say anything about it”, he told reporters.

Behind Trump, who has led by double digits in New Hampshire in recent polls, the GOP race remained hotly contested.

Meanwhile, the crowded field for the presidential nomination narrowed slightly on both sides, with two candidates dropping out of the race on Monday night.

On the Republican side, Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee tweeted that he too would suspend his campaign.

He managed to win just 1% of state delegates in the caucus, and had been struggling to raise funds to pay his team. John McCain. He didn’t run in 2012, but gave the nomination another shot this cycle. Rubio is a favorite of mainstream Republicans and hoped to use the Iowa results to urge the party establishment to coalesce around his candidacy. At the end of the fourth quarter, FEC reports show that Huckabee had only $133,000 left in the bank.