“For all practical purposes, it was a tie.”
It wasn’t a tie. It was a win.
You can say there’s only a slim lead in the delegates, it was a close race, whatever. But to say it wasn’t a win is just false.
And it is equally false for the media to claim that there is any clear leader coming out of Iowa or that Trump got schloonged, whipped, embarrassed or blown out or any other of a half of a dozen adjectives I have heard recently.
Cruz got 0.6 percent of the delegates needed for the nomination. Trump also got 0.6 percent of the delegates needed. Rubio either got 0.6 or 0.5 percent depending on the number of delegates allotted (some have said 7, others 6)
A 1 delegate difference when 1,237 are needed for the nomination is a difference that is so minor as to be irrelevant this early in the game. So my point has been and continues to be that Iowa serves the purpose of narrowing the field. Historically it has not be very good at selecting the nominee. However, it has been good at eliminating the bottom tier candidates and also rans. In other words, the focus should not be at the top of the field but rather who drops off the bottom.