Iowa Caucuses

23:30 PST: Barack Obama’s win tonight in Iowa is deeper and more thorough than his eight percentage point victory suggests. Preliminary exit polling shows him winning in nearly every statistical category.

These polls depict an uncontested match. Protruding on Clinton’s turf, Obama took the women vote 35% to 30%. He dominated the top three issues of the race: the Economy, Iraq, and yes, Health Care too. Republicans and independents also went with him more than any other democratic candidate–presaging the next contest in a heavily independent New Hampshire.

Wash, rinse, repeat…

20:30 PST: The Speech

20:20 PST: Final results:

Republicans

Huckabee: 34% Romney: 24% Thompson: 13%

Democrats

Obama: 37.58% Edwards: 29.75% Clinton: 29.47%

A resounding victory for Barack Obama tonight. As I eluded to earlier, this election is about change, which Edwards and Clinton were clearly judged to be incapable of. It’s about moving forward, not about promising safe, or being angry at now.

It came down to turnout though, “With 96 percent of the precincts reporting we are seeing record turnout with 227,000 caucus attendees.” People sensed that this election was very significant. They came out to express their discontent with the status quo. They wanted change.

19:09 PST:

Andrea Mitchell describes the Clinton headquarters in the wake of Clinton’s devastating loss. The hall was empty and then they packed it. But the message of this caucus is surely that you cannot buy votes, as Romney tried to, and you cannot intimidate people into voting for you, as the Clintons tried. In the end, voters want real people with actual arguments in order to change the country. That’s why Huckabee and Obama have prevailed. They’re real. The establishments of both parties lost.

Andrew Sullivan - “Daily Dish“

18:40 PST: Obama and Huckabee win Iowa.

Both caucuses came down to this question: Change or experience? Change won.

18:00 PST: Official results to far…

For the Democrats:

Obama: 34.06% Edwards: 31.71% Clinton: 31.45% (923/1781 precincts reporting)

Voter turnout is up, big-time, across the board. This is looking good for Obama, especially because a lot of the first time caucus-goers are young and going for him.

The Biden, Dodd, Richardson second-vote seems to be going his way too!

For the Republicans:

Huckabee 33% Romney 24% McCain 11%

The evangelical vote is through the roof tonight! As a result, Mike Huckabee is walking away with it. News outlets are projecting that he has won Iowa.

17:02 PST: Schools, libraries, and homes throughout Iowa are filling up with caucus-goers. I’ll be posting here throughout the night as results start to pour in.

Nobody knows what to expect tonight. Caucases are highly unpredictable, especially for the Democrats. Each candidate must meet a 15% threshold in each precinct to stay viable — the votes for the candidates who don’t meet that mark are redistributed to the voters second choice. This may be the crucial deciding factor as the most recent polls put the both races within the margin of error.