Sanders wins Iowa

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Before the primary season started, speculation was that the Democrats' most likely candidate would be Former Secretary Hillary Clinton, and the Republicans would nominate Former Governor Jeb Bush. However, as primary season started, Bush lost a lot of momentum and quickly hit a dismal 5% in the polls. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, two political outsiders running as hardcore populists, gained traction very quickly and Trump started leading in polls, while Sanders barely trailed Hillary. On the day of the Iowa caucus, most were certain of a Clinton victory. However, the media was shocked by these results:

Bernie Sanders: 45%
Hillary Clinton: 42%
Martin O'Malley: 12%

O'Malley was initially polling at 2% but ran heavy campaign operations in Iowa and managed to receive a good 12% of the vote. Of course, the real surprise was for Clinton. Not only did Sanders, a self-described socialist from Vermont with little name recognition, defeat her in the Iowa caucus, she was now no longer the frontrunner on the Democrats' side.

The Republican caucus produced interesting results as well:

Ted Cruz: 28%
Donald Trump: 24%
Marco Rubio: 23%
Ben Carson: 9%

Texas Senator Ted Cruz had won the Iowa caucus, and by a decent margin as well. Marco Rubio, an ambitious Senator from Florida, was doing well, taking 23% of the vote. Donald Trump saw a disappointing second-place result after hoping his populist message would ride him to victory in Iowa, however Cruz took heavy support from Iowa's many Evangelicals. Following the results, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul ended their campaigns.
 
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