Iowa 2016 Results: A Good Night For Cruz and Rubio, Clinton and Sanders...and BTRTN (We Called It!)

After months and months of endless campaigning and media coverage, the 2016 Iowa Caucus is (almost) in the history books.

Who Won:  While nothing is quite official yet, Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz appear to be the winners of the Iowa caucus.  Hillary won a 49.9% to 49.6% squeaker over Bernie Sanders, while Cruz edged out Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in what emerged as a three-way race, by a 28%/24%/23% count.

Who Really Won:  In the vital expectation games, the real story is a bit more complicated.  Cruz is certainly a winner, but so is Marco Rubio with his top tier third place finish.  This gives Rubio strong momentum into New Hampshire (on February 9), where he will try to give a knockout blow to the rest of the “mainstream” wing of the GOP with a strong second place finish (to Trump) or even a win (unlikely).  On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton did well to eke out a victory, preventing the specter of Sanders taking the first two events of the campaign season.  But Sanders can claim enormous credibility as a candidate (though I doubt that will translate to wins in the South after he takes New Hampshire.)

Who Lost:  Donald Trump proved fallible, which is a blow to his brand but not necessarily his prospects.   The Donald is in for a long slog now again both Cruz and (presumably) Rubio, but his prospects remains good.  The prior two winners of the GOP Iowa Caucus, Rick Santorum (in 2012) and Mike Huckabee (in 2008) did very poorly.  Huckabee has already dropped out, as has Martin O’Malley, more will follow either before or after New Hampshire.

And We Won Too:  It was an excellent night for Born To Run The Numbers, having called both races in the proper rank order and nearly the correct percentages, particularly on the GOP side.  We get credit for seeing the Rubio burst at the end, and for assessing that Trump’s broad appeal would not overcome Cruz’s organization (despite Cruz’s numbers fading toward the end).  Here is a comparison of the projected results versus the actuals…I have not found any other site that did better!  (See the article below for our predictions.)

IOWA GOP	BTRTN Prediction	Actual		IOWA DEM	BTRTN Prediction	Actual
Cruz	25	28		Clinton	50	50
Trump	24	24		Sanders	46	50
Rubio	22	23		O'Malley	4	0
Carson	7	9
Paul	5	5
Bush	4	3
Fiorina	2	2
Kasich	3	2
Huckabee	4	2
Christie	3	2
Santorum	1	1

Back soon with thoughts on New Hampshire...stay tuned.