It’s 2016, which means it’s officially the year of the election. In November, voters from all around the country will cast their ballot for who they believe is the right candidate. However, before we can run to the voting booths in November, we have to take a few steps. One of those steps happened on Monday, February 1st in Iowa. All around the state, voters reported to different voting sites based on their precinct and cast the first vote that actually means something on the road to Decision 2016.

As far as results go, on the GOP side, Ted Cruz won by 27.6 percent, with Donald Trump close behind at 24.3 percent, and Marco Rubio at 23.1 percent. However, some are questioning if these results are an adequate prediction of who will win the nomination. “I think if you look historically at the Iowa Caucuses, especially on the Republican side, they have not been a very good predictor of who their nominee is going to be. So the fact that Ted Cruz won and Donald Trump didn’t do as well is not as big of a deal. The biggest story to come out of the whole night is Rubio coming in third,” said history teacher, Taylor Berkowitz.  

The most interesting scores came in on the Democrat’s side with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton neck and neck. Although Clinton was called the winner at 49.9 percent, most are calling it a “virtual tie” considering Sanders scored 49.6 percent of the vote. Some are calling this win a “redemption” for Hillary considering her brutal loss to Obama in the Iowa caucus eight years ago. Yet, others say Hillary’s victory is less significant considering the fact that she and Sanders were neck and neck. “I feel like everyone thought that Hillary Clinton would just get the nomination, so now that Bernie is putting up more of a fight it will be a more interesting race,” said senior, Sam Applebaum.

With November only eight months away, it’s already turning out to be an interesting race indeed!