The American presidential election (3)
In the first actual vote of voter opinion in the US presidential primaries, the people of Iowa have now spoken – or at least a few hundred thousand of them out of three million (although turnout was much higher than four years ago).
In the Republican camp, the result was:
Huckabee 34.3%
Romney 25.3%
Thomson 13.4%
McCain 13.1%
Paul 10.0%
Giuliani 3.5%
I don’t think this result tells us very much about the likely winner of the Republican race. Huckabee’s massive support from evangelical Christians in Iowa will not translate to New Hampshire and elsewhere
On the Democratic side, the result was:
Obama 37.6%
Edwards 29.7%
Clinton 29.5%
Richardson 2.1%
Now this is a much more interesting result. It doesn’t mean than Clinton (or even Edwards) cannot win the nomination, but it is an enormously satisfying performance for my preferred candidate Barack Obama.
An American friend of mine from Illinois – where Obama is a senator – e-mailed me today: “His speech tonight was excellent, talking about bringing the country together. If he can win in New Hampshire, he is definitely on his way to being the candidate. I think it is remarkable that a mid-western state that is 95% white, has brought out the vote among so many young people, for a Black candidate. We surely do live in interesting times.”
You can see how the American press carried the news on their front pages here.