Iowa Votes
The Iowa Caucuses kept a lot of people up late last night and the results are in, sort of. On the Democratic side, the campaign of Hillary Clinton declared victory at five this morning, a declaration that was not agreed to by rival Bernie Sanders. With one precinct still outstanding, Clinton has six hundred ninety nine point five seven state delegate equivalents to Sanders’ six hundred ninety five point four nine. The outstanding precinct, which is Des Moines forty two, has two point two eight delegate equivalents. In essence, as Sanders said last night, the election is a tie. It’s said to be the closest Democratic primary in Iowa history.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who received just over seven delegate equivalents, suspended his campaign last night.
Cruz: Wins the “must win”
On the G O P side of the house, it wasn’t the closest in history, but it was by far the largest with nearly one hundred eighty seven thousand ballots cast, a full fifty percent more than was cast in two thousand twelve’s caucus, which itself was a record breaker. With ninety nine percent of precincts reporting, Texas Senator Ted Cruz had fifty one thousand six hundred forty nine votes, or twenty seven point six percent of the vote. In second, real estate mogul Donald Trump, had forty five thousand four hundred sixteen votes or twenty four point three percent. And, in an eye catching third place finish, Florida Senator Marco Rubio garnered forty three thousand one hundred thirty two votes, or twenty three point one percent.
Rounding out the top five, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson received seventeen thousand three hundred ninety three votes or nine point three percent and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul pulled in eight thousand four hundred seventy eight votes or four an a half percent.
By comparison, in two thousand twelve, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum took first with twenty nine thousand eight hundred thirty nine votes to then Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s twenty nine thousand eight hundred five, giving each twenty six point four percent. Texas Congressman Ron Paul finished third with twenty six thousand thirty six votes, or twenty one and a half percent.
NH comes into the spotlight
All eyes now turn to the Granite State for its First in the Nation Presidential Primary where Trump has held a commanding twenty plus point lead in the polls with no apparent surge of support for any candidate.
As the candidates prepared to arrive in the state, New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster didn’t exactly roll out the Red Carpet. Instead, he released a memorandum to all presidential candidates yesterday highlighting the state law which prohibits political messages from being left on a voter’s voice mail if their phone number is on the National Do Not Call Registry.
Foster: Welcome to NH, don’t call home!
In other election news, The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion and 7 News are partnering to conduct tracking polls of likely New Hampshire primary voters between now and February 7. The independent, nonpartisan polls of one thousand four hundred New Hampshire registered voters will be taken daily and the results of each day will be released on the following day at 7 a.m. For yesterday, February 1, the polls showed Trump cruising over Cruz, his closest rival, by 26 points and Sanders crushing Clinton by 31 points. The methodology and polling results can all be found online and we’ve linked to it from this news read at Girard at Large dot com.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
The Goffstown School Board announced this year’s recipients of their Cornerstone and Dream Keeper awards yesterday.
Doster: Cornerstone
Bousquet: Cornerstone
The Cornerstone Awards are given to staff or community members who work in their schools and quote “demonstrate outstanding achievements in support of student learning.” The winners were Principal Leslie Doster of Glen Lake School and Principal David Bousquet of Bartlett Elementary School, right across from our Super Secret Broadcast Location above Jacques Flower Shop in scenic Pinardville.
Helped by Dream Keepers
The Dream Keeper Award recognizes people or organizations that have quote “gone the extra mile to make the Goffstown dream of providing a superior education a reality.” This year’s winners were Mike and Patty Shearin who work with the Goffstown Grizzlies Lacrosse program. That’s the high school program in case you didn’t know. Both awards are sponsored by the Goffstown School District. Our congratulations to the award recipients.
No doubt Mayor Ted Gatsas will take note of these awards as he crafts the award and recognition program he’s developing for the Manchester School District.
We’ve linked to the promotional videos notifying people of the awards from this news read at Girard at Large dot com.
Sandblade and Olsen: Calculator now available
Expand NH dot org, whose founders we interviewed yesterday, has launched the Web site containing the income tax calculator they say will help Granite Staters understand how much they’ll have to pay in income taxes to fund the Expanded Medicaid program as federal funds dry up. Founders Susan Olsen and Emily Sandblade used existing proposals by Democratic State Rep. Paul Henle and the projected costs of the Expanded Medicaid program to create the calculator. They’ve linked to Henle’s so called N H Tax Shift Plan so you know how they came up with the numbers. We’ve linked to their site with the calculator and the interview we did with them yesterday so you can check it out and see why Expanded Medicaid just might not be good for your wallet.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is next!
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