US Presidential primaries: Cruz cruises to victory over Trump, Clinton and Sanders end in “virtual tie”

Senator Ted Cruz powered to a crushing defeat of Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses this morning as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida finished a strong third.

Cruz scored 27.6 per cent of the votes, Trump got 24.3 per cent while Rubio scored 23.1 per cent.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic caucuses, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders ended up in what Sanders described as a “virtual tie” while hapless Martin O’Mailey could only muster 0.6 per cent of the votes, forcing the governor of Maryland to announce that he was quitting the race.

Clinton scored 49.8 per cent of the Democratic votes, while Sanders got 49.6.

Mr. Cruz’s victory came on the heels of attacks by prominent Repulblicans who expressed concerns that his hard-line views would lead Republicans to a woeful outing in the presidential election proper if elected as the party’s flag-bearer.

Trump’s defeat will come as a surprise to the billionaire himself, who was leading in the pre-caucuses poll and who characteristically had predicted his own victory

“To God be the glory,” Mr. Cruz told jubilant supporters. “Tonight is a victory for the grass roots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives all across Iowa and our great nation,” Cruz said in a speech after the poll.

However, the defeat did nothing to mellow Trump’s brashness as he told delegates that he would still emerge the Republican representative and go ahead to defeat “whoever the hell they throw out there.”

“I love you people. I love you people,” a subdued-sounding Mr. Trump unconvincingly told a crowd of Iowans in West Des Moines. “We will go on to get the Republican nomination, and we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie or whoever the hell they throw out there,” he said.

Sanders said his showing in the poll is a statement of defiant to the establishment.

“As I think about what happened tonight, I think the people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, to the economic establishment, and by the way to the media establishment. And that is given the enormous crisis facing our country, it is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics.”

Source: the New York Times