Five Things Worth Knowing About Yesterday’s Iowa Caucus

Remember His Name:  Jeff Roe.  Roe is the Chief Strategist who orchestrated the Ted Cruz ground game with precision and guile, receiving scrutiny for two questionable campaign tactics executed right before the election. 
The first mailing was a campaign “Voting Violation” sent to thousands of would-be Cruz supporters using a “shaming” tactic to get them out to caucus.  Looking like a government-issued mailer, the Voting Violation showed how the recipient’s voting record matched up with the voting records of their neighbors.

The second tactic was to leak the false claim that Ben Carson was getting out of the race, in the hopes that the Carson evangelical voters would flip to Cruz.  Case in point:  at 5:20 pm last night, Cruz’ top surrogate, Iowa Representative Steve King tweeted, “Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope.” Check out this expanded story on CNN.

Heads or Tails?  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tied for votes in five of the 99 counties.  Based on the quirky rules of the Democratic caucus system, ties are broken with a flip of a coin.  So who got the edge?  Clinton won all five coin tosses.  The difference may have cost Sanders the win.

Rubio By The Numbers:  The Des Moines Register (the gold standard for polling in Iowa) reported before the caucus that Marco Rubio would garner about 15% of the vote, but instead, he ended up in third place with 23%, just shy of Donald Trump’s 24%.  So where did his votes come from?  Of the 99 counties, Rubio won only five, but they were the same ones that Romney had secured four years ago.  Digging deeper into the numbers, Rubio stole most of his votes from Trump, not Cruz.

Record Shattering and Glass Breaking:  180,000 Caucus-goers showed up to vote last night, shattering previously held records of 120,000 in 2012 and 119,000 in 2008.   Also, Clinton became the first woman in history to win an Iowa presidential caucus.

Casualty Count:  2.  Mike Huckabee(R) and Martin O’Malley(D) have announced that they are suspending their campaigns.