Cruz Comfortably Beats Trump in Iowa. Dems still too close to call. Suspicious Clinton bounce repealed.
February 2, 2016

 
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Going into the wee hours of the morning, I was watching Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead shrink all night, when around 9pm CST, with 18% of precincts left to go, leading by only 11 delegates, the Clinton campaign declared victory despite all the pollsters saying it was “too close to call.” Her lead continued to shrink with every update. By the time the number of precincts was down to just 10% remaining, her lead had shrunk to just THREE delegates when she decided to make her (pseudo) “victory” speech. Then suddenly, with an additional 1% of precincts, her lead suddenly jumped to a whopping ELEVEN delegates. That lead held for another 20 minutes when it suddenly plunged back down to just 3. The explanation? According to Chuck Todd: “A reporting error” was to blame that was caught & corrected. Hmmm. Those kind of “innocent mistakes” make me extremely uncomfortable.

With 2% of precincts still remaining as of midnight (around 1,600+ precincts), the Sanders campaign reported “90 Precincts presently had no DNC staff” (on site?), meaning no one available to count votes. Uncomfortable #2. The DNC rebuked the Sanders claim, though saying only the staff is “available” but not “on site” to tally those votes. Sounds to me like the Sanders’ campaign was right.

Most under-reported story of the night? How badly 5th place Rand Paul beat 6th place Jeb Bush (by roughly 3,200 votes.)

What does a second place finish mean for Trump? Consider his entire campaign has been one big ego trip, so coming in second was a wake-up call for him. He should win New Hampshire easily, but I doubt he’ll be taking future races for granted.

Final tally with “99% of precincts reporting” (not including those unstaffed 90 precincts and with recounts and “reporting errors” yet to be reviewed)… Hillary: 696 – Sanders: 693 – O’Malley: 8. Shortly after midnight, O’Malley officially dropped out. (note: by 12:50am, Bernies’ delegate count had fallen by one vote? Uncomfortable #3.) You can see my final hour Live-blog updates here.

MORNING UPDATE: Went to bed after 1AM. Super-Delegate count for Hillary & Bernie was 20 each. Was tied all night long. Woke up to see total is now Hillary-29/Bernie-21.
 
Rubio’s subtle hat-tip to the “Project for A New American Century”? (more here):

Rubio's nod to PNAC?

 
Ted Cruz flanked by the despicable Steve King and Cruz’s wacko-bird father (who held this exact pose for several minutes, staring straight ahead without blinking.)
The despicable threesome.

 

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February 2, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Election, General, Politics, Predictions, voting

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