Washington- On the Democratic side, distinct to all expectations, billionaire Donald Trump was given the second place in Iowa, the first state to vote in the race to choose a Republican nominee for the White House. Texas Senator Ted Cruz marched triumphantly into the Granite State, having vanquished Donald Trump. Trump received 24 % of the votes in the Iowa caucuses, placing him closer to the third-place candidate, Marco Rubio (23 %), than to the winner, Ted Cruz (28 %).

Cruz overcame the setbacks with the help of strong support from evangelical voters and the Republican Tea Party wing.

With Trump’s once unstoppable momentum slowed in Iowa, attention is now likely to focus on the battle between Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose strong third place showing in Iowa puts him in a strong position to do well in New Hampshire next week.

In the Democratic camp, Hillary Clinton’s campaign team announced that the Democratic candidate won in Iowa a slight lead over her rival premier Bernie Sanders.

State Democratic Chairman, Andy McGuire, said more than 170,000 Iowans participated in caucuses across the state, one of the biggest turnouts ever. Clinton won 49.86% of the vote, with Sanders on 49.57% – a margin of just 0.29 percentage points. The two appear to have split the number of delegates Iowa will send to the national Democratic convention roughly evenly, with Clinton collecting 23 and Sanders 21.

New Hampshire is the next state to vote on Tuesday, February 9, followed by South Carolina State on the 20th of February; then the rest of the states as the electoral campaign will continue until June 2016.