It was a showdown in Iowa Monday night, and Tuesday a jumbling at the top. Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton officially earned the most delegates in the Iowa Caucus, but each of the candidates had something to say, and claim, about their standing.
So who’s telling the truth?
NBC Bay Area looked into those claims.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz raised eyebrows when he told the crowd during his victory speech, “To put in perspective, your incredible victory that you have won tonight. That is the most votes ever cast for any Republican primary winner.”
This statement is partly true. Cruz collected more than 51,000 votes, a record for a Republican candidate in the Iowa Caucuses, but nowhere near the GOP primary record. Consider this, in 2012, Mitt Romney fetched about a million votes in Texas alone.
Donald Trump, humbled by a second-place finish, told a crowd, “We have a poll: We're 28 points ahead, New Hampshire. We love New Hampshire.”
Trump is exaggerating his advantage, but not by that much. This week, five polls have handicapped the Republican race in New Hampshire, from CNN to the Boston Herald. They all show ‘The Donald’ up -- but by between 18 and 26 points.
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Throughout his campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has painted himself as a trailblazer, unwilling to accept super-PAC cash during his surge up his party’s ranks.
At his speech Monday night, he told onlookers, “We do not represent the interests of the billionaire class, Wall Street, or corporate America--- we don’t want their money!”
And he does lead the way in individual donations by a lot. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, some 98 percent of Sanders’ money comes from contributors. However, some of those contributors hail from corporate America’s most influential firms, and their political action committees are also making contributions to team Sanders.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton largely avoided taking any risks, instead opting for a bold vision of what she’d like to achieve, like standing up to the gun lobby and passing what she called “common sense” gun safety measures. If efforts after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 proved anything, it’s that a president’s will is not enough. Gun laws won’t change, until Congress changes.
Then there’s Florida Senator Marco Rubio. He might not have won the most delegates, but he was most certainly the night’s biggest winner, nearly matching Trump for votes. That’s a feat no one predicted, and a development that establishes a three-horse race in the Republican Party.
