Clinton, Sanders finish near neck and neck in Iowa caucuses

DES MOINES - Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's upstart Democratic presidential challenge fired the first resounding shot of his call for a political revolution Monday night, coming within a hairbreadth of Hillary Clinton in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.

It was a stunning come-from-nowhere story for Sanders who entered the 2016 Democratic sweepstakes in May, and answered the question of whether a 74-year-old professed Jewish Socialist with a Brooklyn accent would play in Brooklyn, Iowa.

Monday night also questioned former Secretary of State Clinton's inevitability as her party's 2016 nominee, suggesting a more protracted primary campaign than initially expected. New Hampshire primary is next, on Feb. 9, and where Sanders leads in the polls.

The space between the Democratic candidates for president was measured in tenths of a percentage point as of shortly after 10 p.m. Monday, with Clinton at 50.1 percent of delegate equivalents and Sanders at 49.3 percent, with 92 percent of precincts reporting.

Sanders's supporters at his caucus-night celebration in Des Moines remained excited well into the evening. As the results poured in and the edge between Sanders and Clinton narrowed, Sanders's supporters cheered media reports and chanted for their candidate.

Sanders, during his end-of-the-night speech at 10:50 p.m., declared the contest a 'virtual tie.”

Early returns seemed to show Clinton had much of her strength in central Iowa, particularly around Polk County. Sanders did well in Iowa's college areas, as well as in bigger counties such as Linn, according to incomplete results being reported late into the evening.

Early in the race, Sanders was given little chance of challenging Clinton, so the close contest is a remarkable turnabout from last May, when Clinton was leading by a bulky 41 points.

Sanders closed the gap with a wave of enthusiastic supporters who embraced his message of sparking a 'political revolution” to take on the political establishment and address issues such as wealth inequality and low wages.

Sanders first caught the attention of the national media by drawing 700 people in a late May appearance in Davenport. The next day the Vermont senator told the Quad-City Times, 'I think we will surprise some people how well we'll do here.”

He did. Crowds flocked to his rallies - in the hundreds, even thousands.

Polls down the home stretch of the Democratic race in Iowa had shown a tightening contest between Clinton and Sanders. The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics survey over the weekend said Clinton was leading by just three points.

Sanders called for a $15 national minimum wage, a revamp of the campaign finance system, a single payer health care plan and breaking up the big banks.

At the Danceland Ballroom in Davenport the weekend before the caucuses, he exhorted 1,000 people to march with him, saying Monday's vote was about 'whether Iowa is ready to lead this country forward in a political revolution that will transform America.”

Clinton, drawing on her own experience, had pushed for a more incremental - and, she said, realistic - approach. She's said she'd build on the Affordable Care Act to lower out of pocket insurance costs and use the powers in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to deal with the financial industry.

'I'm not interested in ideas that sound good on paper but will never happen in the real world,” Clinton said in late January in Indianola.

Meanwhile, Clinton's campaign was criticized for lacking passion, and some analysts said they didn't see the fire in her supporters they did in Sanders's backers. But by the end of the campaign, the tempo of the Clinton campaign picked up and her supporters became more vocal.

A late Iowa Poll said that, contrary to popular impressions, it was her supporters in Iowa, not Sanders's, that were more excited.

Clinton set up a robust campaign apparatus in Iowa from the start. She outfitted a campaign staff that quickly fanned out across Iowa, making contact with old political friends and seeking new ones.

Clinton's first visits were small. She said she wanted to hear Iowans' concerns. And throughout the campaign, she peppered her speeches with references to state issues, often as a platform to criticize Republican Gov. Terry Branstad for his handling of mental health issues and education funding.

Martin O'Malley, the only other candidate in the Democratic field, earned fewer than 1 percent of delegate equivalents and announced Monday evening that he had suspended his presidential campaign.

O'Malley campaign manager David Hamrick said in a statement that the former Maryland governor 'ran a strong, bold, and honorable campaign in a very challenging year.”

'Although it might not have been Gov. O'Malley's year and while the results of tonight's caucus are disappointing, he leaves the race with an enhanced national profile and proved himself to be a well-liked figure and positive force within in the Democratic Party,” Hamrick said.