DES MOINES, Iowa — If Hillary Clinton was hoping to land a knockout punch against her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses Monday night, then she didn’t get what she was hoping for.
And if Sanders arrived in Des Moines hoping to “pull an Obama” — to unseat the presumptive frontrunner with an upset victory that would immediately reset the narrative of the campaign, as Barack Obama did in 2008 — then his dream didn’t come true, either.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders greets supporters at his caucus-night party, after a close race in the Iowa caucuses Monday in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo News)
In the end, Clinton won this year’s Democratic contest by the narrowest margin in state history, capturing 700.59 state delegate equivalents to 696.82 for Sanders. But the final result wasn’t announced until Tuesday afternoon, long after the next day’s headlines had been written. The delay blunted any momentum Clinton might have carried into next week’s New Hampshire primary and allowed Sanders to declare a “virtual tie.”
Clinton, of course, has reason to feel good about Monday’s outcome — but so does Sanders. In 2008, Clinton, long considered “inevitable,” didn’t just lose to Obama. She also lost to former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. It was a shocking, sobering defeat that her campaign never really recovered from. Monday’s win suggests that she has learned from her mistakes.
