New York Post
editorial
Out of Iowa: Two wide-open races — and some chicanery
By Post Editorial Board
First, enjoy the
overlooked and inspiring good news out of Iowa: Ted Cruz on Monday became the first Latino ever to win a presidential primary or
caucus.
In fact, three of
the top four Republican finishers — Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson — were minority candidates. Together, they won 60 percent of the record- turnout vote.
Pretty remarkable in
a party often slapped as “all white.” Especially when the Democrats aren’t
fielding a single candidate of color.
Instead, we’ve heard
lots of talk about Hillary Clinton being the first woman to win the Iowa
caucus. But did she?
Her razor-thin margin
(by just 3.77 state delegate equivalents) over Bernie Sanders is already under
question,
since no one seems to know how many precincts were decided by coin flip.
The Iowa Democratic
Party late yesterday was denying widespread social-media reports that
Clinton had somehow won every single one of the six coin flips of the night
(against 64-to-1 odds). Instead, the party said, Sanders won six of seven
tosses.
As of now, no one
really knows — because precincts don’t always report their flips.
Add in the facts that
1) the Iowa Democratic Party won’t release the raw vote totals, and 2)
no recount is allowed — and you can see why some Bernie fans are feeling
burned by the establishment.
At best, Clinton won
by under 1 percentage point in a state where she once led by 60 points.
Meanwhile, there’s the blatant chicanery on the GOP side: Cruz has now
apologized for his campaign falsely tweeting on caucus night that Carson was
dropping out of the race — a blatant Team Cruz effort to hijack some Carson
voters.
Absent that cheat,
Cruz’s margin over No. 2 finisher Donald Trump might have been two or more
points smaller — not much ahead of No. 3 Rubio.
And Cruz needed his
big win as much as Clinton needed hers: Next up is New Hampshire — a
straight primary, where Trump’s hefty lead in the polls should translate better
to actual votes than it did in Iowa’s caucuses.
Then South Carolina —
where Rubio may soar thanks to the endorsement of Sen.
Tim Scott. (And where Sanders has
been creeping up on the Democratic side.)
Bottom line: It’s
looking like pitched battles for both nominations — nobody’s running the table
on either side.
And the voters look
ready to keep serving up surprises.
