Iowa Results Change Campaign

The 2016 presidential campaign season has finally entered its "real" stage after months upon months of public opinion polls, contentious debates, and mind-numbing exchanges of insults via Twitter, stump speeches, and media interviews.  The "inevitable" Republican, Donald Trump, didn't win yesterday's Iowa Caucuses as expected: Texas senator Ted Cruz pulled out the victory with 28% of the vote while Trump only mustered 24%.  But the real story on the GOP side in Iowa, in my opinion, was the surge for Florida senator Marco Rubio, who nearly beat out Trump with 23%.  Watch out for this guy...if Trump doesn't recover quickly, Rubio may well storm through to the nomination...

On the Democratic side, it was nearly a dead heat between Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders: both sides are currently spinning the results in their candidate's favor, of course.  Sanders has a large edge in young voters and independents, while Clinton...unlike in 2008 against Barack Obama...has a large margin over her opponent among African-Americans...

Next week is the New Hampshire Primary.  Sanders, whose state of Vermont is right next door, is a shoo-in according to the polls...Clinton just needs to close the gap in order to keep her momentum heading into South Carolina and the other Southern states, where she is much stronger among Democrats.  With the Republicans, Trump needs to win New Hampshire (which he should, with a large margin over his opponents in the opinion polls).  Cruz, like Clinton, sees his main strength down the line in the South.  But if Rubio can gain votes on Trump in New Hampshire like he unexpectedly did in Iowa...watch out!