Morning Update: Iowa Caucus Results
Mike Huckabee, a Republican former governor of Arkansas, and Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, won the first official votes of the 2008 U.S. presidential election last night. The decisive victories by Huckabee and Obama, each of whom came from behind in the polls to win last night’s Iowa caucuses, could shake up one of the more wide-open U.S. presidential races in years.
In his victory speech, Obama, who hopes to become the first-ever African-American to win the White House, declared his victory a “defining moment in history” (FT). Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians (WashPost) and social conservatives to overcome former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s better-financed Iowa campaign.
The vote could have repercussions in primaries to come. The Hill newspaper reports that former Iowa frontrunners Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) face major challenges in New Hampshire, the next state to vote, due to their losses in Iowa. For Clinton, who finished a close third behind former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) but still leads in national polls, the Iowa caucuses could present a particularly serious setback (Politico). Following the vote, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) dropped out of the race.
In terms of foreign policy, the Iowa vote could bear on the ongoing campaign debate. As a new Daily Analysis describes, Iowa voters focused heavily on questions of economic insecurity and immigration. Both Obama and Huckabee, as well as several other leading candidates, explain their stances on pressing matters of foreign policy in recent articles written for Foreign Affairs.
