If this holds throughout the night, the Democratic primary race was just turned over in a big way. Karl Rove will have to retune his reelection strategy. On to New Hampshire.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina appeared tonight to have turned their late surges in Iowa into dominant showings in the state's Democratic caucuses, the first actual electoral test in the 2004 presidential campaign.With 62 percent of the 1993 precincts reporting, Mr. Kerry had 37 percent of the vote and Mr. Edwards had 33 percent. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, who was the early frontrunner in the state, had 18 percent. It was a particularly disappointing night for Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who was running a distant fourth with 11 percent of the vote.
UPDATE: The numbers are holding up. Gephardt is dropping out. Jonah Goldberg at NRO's The Corner has the best early take:
For all of the talk of the "Old Democratic Party" versus the "New Democratic Party" the real lesson here is that neither Democratic Party did well. The Gephardt wing of manufacturing union types and, to a lesser extent, farmers crashed and burned. Gephardt's getting out of the race. The "new" Democratic Party of latte-drinking, internet savvy, Bush-hating, war-opposing, young people turned out to the polls but it didn't vote for their annointed representative either. Three-quarters of Caucus-goers were opposed to the war, but they overhwelmingly voted for 2 candidates who voted for it (though they outrageously voted against the $87 billion nation-building bill). There will be a great deal of spin about how Kerry and Edwards represent the centrist interests of a party looking to win instead of hate. Some of that spin is probably true. But the fact that the candidates who had the support of youngsters and union members did so poorly is also a sign that the traditional levers of the Democratic Party don't pull the machinery anymore.Posted by Alan at January 19, 2004 08:30 PM