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Clinton on Iowa caucus day: A “bit scarred up”, but still standing

In a photo finish, Hillary Clinton came in as the victor of the Democratic caucus in Iowa Monday night. Just over half of New Hampshire GOP primary voters in 2012 and 2008 said they considered themselves conservative according to exit polls, well below the more than 8-in-10 who said so in Iowa and roughly 7-in-10 in SC.

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She has set a goal for the first quarter of this year of $50 million, and has aggressively stepped up fund-raising efforts, deploying her husband Bill Clinton, her daughter Chelsea, and other high-profile surrogates.

Over 1,200 enthusiastic Iowans filled a Cedar Rapids convention center Saturday morning in support of Bernie Sanders, the grassroots presidential candidate making a final, aggressive push ahead of Monday’s pivotal caucus. Put simply, if losing a precinct seems likely, it can be better to take delegates from your rival than to try to win them yourself. What has gotten far less attention, however, is the split that exists between women in their late teens and early 20s and their cohorts in their 30s.

Sanders also would not address reports that the Clinton campaign is training its caucus leaders to potentially throw some support behind long-shot candidate former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in order to blunt potential Sanders gains as a means of exploiting the complicated Iowa caucus rules.

“You will not be paying for this forever if I become president”, she promised a woman in Newton, who told the audience that her husband now owed more than he originally borrowed. It was all health care and the kids.

“She’s dishonest, she has no original vision”, he said.

The poll affirms that Sanders’s main challenge is to make sure that his supporters-less experienced than Clinton’s-actually turn out to caucus. She taped an episode of “Broad City”, a sometimes raunchy comedy about two twenty-something women living in New York City and has created a “girl power” music playlist.

“Now they refuse to take yes for an answer, apparently because they are intent on avoiding a debate in New Hampshire”. Kellie Lewis, 36, brought her 19-month-old daughter and five-month-old son to hear Ms. Clinton speak at a bowling alley in Adel, Iowa last week.

Sanders answered “No, no. No, that is not, I think, a fair assessment”.

But Erin Batchelder, a junior at Smith College in MA, is conflicted.

Smoking is just one issue Senator Bernie Sanders hammered home to the young crowd. A recent a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump could garner a support base of 87 percent, while Sanders was able to earn a support base of 54 percent.

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“There is a legal process underway right now”, he said.

Dennis Van Tine  Star Max  IPx