Ted Cruz Wins Iowa in Record Turnout
PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We got more evidence tonight, the Democratic party is moving left in pretty dramatic ways and this is going to be an issue for party for years to come, especially with young voters, who are challenging even what has been considered liberal policies. That will be a challenge for Hillary Clinton and the next Democratic president.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot to watch for. I thank you all of you for joining us. Don't go anywhere. Our special live coverage continues right now with John Berman and Poppy Harlow.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a special "it's not over" edition of EARLY START. I'm John Berman.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow. Good morning to all of you. It is Tuesday, February 2nd. We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. What a night.</s>BERMAN: The breaking news is this, it is not over. It is 2:00 a.m. on the east coast, and the race for the Democrats is still too close to call, if you can believe it. We are still waiting for results from a few outstanding precincts. Those votes still being counted, still being searched for, frankly. As you can see from the tally right there, it's the tiniest razor-thin lead. A virtual tie between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.</s>HARLOW: When you look at the Republican side, for the GOP, a blockbuster night as far as voter turnout. You saw the lines heading into the caucusing. Well, look what happened. As we see, Ted Cruz declaring victory, beating Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, no question. It's been a night of big surprises on the Republican side. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night, though, is just how much we saw the Rubio surge play out. Now he's headed to New Hampshire, all eyes turn to New Hampshire. A lot to get through.</s>HARLOW: I want to bring in Chris Moody, CNN Politics senior digital correspondent. He is in Des Moines. Chris, let's start with this bizarro world we are in at 2:01 a.m. on the east coast where the Democratic race isn't over. Explain to me what's happening right now.</s>CHRIS MOODY, CNN POLITICS SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: You couldn't have asked for a more exciting caucus night in Iowa on both the Democratic and Republican sides. If you talked to anyone several months ago, they would have said this is Hillary Clinton's year. She'll run away with this. Maybe she'll get a little bit of attention here from other candidates but not much competition. But that is not the case here in Iowa. Bernie Sanders virtually tied with her tonight. Surprising, not a lot of people that were watching this close recently, but certainly a couple of months ago. After the caucus results were rolling in, all of the candidates gave speeches. Let's listen to what Bernie Sanders had to say.</s>BERMAN: Do you have details on the outstanding precincts and where the votes are and what they are doing to get them?</s>MOODY: It's just a couple of precincts that aren't reporting but it will come out a tie as far as the narrative of what people are saying about the Iowa caucuses. Here it's all about the expectation in Iowa. And the expectation for Hillary Clinton was high, that she would do very well. So Bernie comes out an expectation winner on a night like this because he has tied the person who is supposed to be the front- runner.</s>HARLOW: It's interesting. We heard the head of the Republican Party in Iowa saying over the weekend this was about a lot more than just who came in first. This was about who could exceed expectations. By all accounts, that was Marco Rubio tonight. He gave a very powerful, fired up speech. Also we heard from Ted Cruz. What stood out to you most from what Ted Cruz, the winner, said tonight?</s>MOODY: Well, Ted Cruz has solidified himself as somebody who's going to be formidable coming up in the next few weeks and months. For so long before, it looked like that Donald Trump was going to be the person that we were all going to watch out for. Of course, he still has a lot of power going forward. But by Ted Cruz taking it by so many thousands of votes ahead of Donald Trump, he really came out on top. Also, Marco Rubio, of course, giving a stronger showing than anyone really expected. Not just in third place, but right behind Donald Trump, who was really -- a lot of people said was supposed to take first place. Let's listen to Ted Cruz and what he said.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ, (R), TEXAS & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tonight, thanks to the incredible hard work of everyone gathered here, of courageous conservatives across this state, we together earned the votes of 48,608 Iowans.</s>CRUZ: To put it in perspective, your incredible victory that you have won tonight, that is the most votes ever cast for any Republican primary winner.</s>MOODY: Now I think that people are going to point to missteps along the way that Donald Trump had in the past. For example, here in October, listen to what he said about Iowans last year.</s>DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Now if I lose Iowa, I will never speak to you people again. That I can tell you.</s>MOODY: He also said how stupid could Iowans be. Now he certainly has changed his tone tonight. Take in something we don't see a lot tonight with Donald Trump, and that's humility. Listen to what he told Iowans tonight after taking second place.</s>TRUMP: We finished second, and I want to tell you something, I'm just honored. I'm really honored. And I want to congratulate Ted, and I want to congratulate all of the incredible candidates, including Mike Huckabee, who has become a really good friend of mine. So congratulations to everybody. Thank you. You're special. We will be --</s>MOODY: Certainly, a tough night for Donald Trump, somebody whose entire brand is about winning. And here he comes in second place. So he'll have to roar into New Hampshire to really have a strong showing going forward.</s>BERMAN: All right, Chris. Chris Moody for us in Des Moines. The results again, Ted Cruz winning on the Republican side. Donald Trump in second. Marco Rubio in third. On the Democratic side, we don't know.</s>HARLOW: We still don't know.</s>BERMAN: They are still counting right now, looking for the votes from some precincts.</s>HARLOW: Let's talk about this. A lot to digest on a night that is far, far from over. Let's bring in our panel, CNN political commentators, Tara Setmayer, Maria Cardona, Sally Kohn and Ben Ferguson, all with us, all very opinionated folk. Let's start with the Dems. The way that I heard, Tara, Van Jones describe it earlier that stood out to me was movement versus machine, right? Saying Bernie is the movement. Hillary Clinton is the machine. But actually we have no idea what took over tonight, movement or machine.</s>TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think we do. There is some indication of that. The machine, the Clinton machine, is what the ground game was. They invested heavily in Iowa. She was embarrassed in Iowa in 2008 because they underestimated Barack Obama and did not invest in the infrastructure there. They tried to learn from those mistakes, so they started investing early on. With that said, we all say organization, organization is so important in Iowa. But then here you have Bernie Sanders, who came out of relative obscurity. I mean, a year ago, Hillary Clinton had 60. 5 percent, a career ago right now in Iowa, to Bernie Sanders at 6.7 percent. I'd say now you're looking at too close to call. That's a movement.</s>BERMAN: Maria, what are you hearing from the Clinton team here? They wanted a clear victory.</s>MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.</s>BERMAN: There's nothing clear as we sit here at 2:07 a.m. Maybe they'll squeak out the tiniest of margins.</s>CARDONA: Sure. Yeah.</s>BERMAN: What does this do going to New Hampshire where they're behind also?</s>CARDONA: I don't think it changes their calculus of where they were to begin with. And absolutely, they would have preferred a clear win with a wide margin. But at the end of the day, if she wins, a win is a win. But even if she doesn't win, right, I mean, let's think about this from the calculus of all of the primaries and caucuses. It would have been strange if she would have run the table. And I know that everybody talks about how she was the prohibitive front runner. That is the biggest myth that was perpetrated by Republicans and the media. They -- the Clinton campaign sat down her allies from the very beginning, more than a year ago, before she even decided to run and said, look, you guys, this is not going to be easy. No matter who she runs against on the Republican side, she is going to have somebody run against her on the Democratic side. And it is not going to be easy. They knew this. This is cooked into their strategy. So moving forward, she's going to focus on trying to do as well as she can in New Hampshire, and then South Carolina, Nevada, Super Tuesday.</s>HARLOW: Sally, to you, when you talk about the voters that came out, here's why -- let me counter-argue that Clinton perhaps should be worried. It was a lot older. The voters that came out to caucus tonight were older. That helped her when you compare it to four years ago and to eight years ago. You can't say that's going to be the case across the board in all of these other primaries. And she barely -- we don't even know if she's eked it out. How much did that help her tonight?</s>SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's no question that as Chris said earlier this is an expectations game in Iowa. And Bernie Sanders won the expectation game. No one expected him to do this well. That it is even close to a tie, whichever way it ends up, is a win for Bernie Sanders and his supporters. And the only maybe silver lining in all of this is that Hillary's camp has for a long time been trying to say they are not a front-runner because there is all kinds of political peril in being a front-runner. Also, I would note that Hillary is a better candidate as an underdog. In 2008, after she lost to Barack Obama in Iowa, from New Hampshire on, she was a stronger candidate. And by some counts, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, she actually won more vote, not delegates, but votes from that point forward than Barack Obama. So she kind of gets a fire in her when she's an underdog. Maybe this turns around. But again, I think the larger issue here is she can't fight against what Bernie Sanders stands for, the politics he stands for, which shows the biggest deficit for Hillary Clinton as a candidate.</s>BERMAN: Ben Ferguson, let's shift gears to the Republicans. We do have a clear winner in this race. Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses. This after Donald Trump told us that he was going to win so much we were all going to be sick of winning.</s>BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Donald Trump, I'll quote him tonight with one of his tweets from back in 2013, when he says, "No one ever remembers who comes in second place." Well, tonight, everyone remembers who came in second place, and that's Donald Trump. And when you put the expectations where he did -- remember this whole week, people have been talking about Ted Cruz is in trouble. And even, you know, the front page of the newspapers, after the debate, you know, were saying how brilliant Donald Trump was to skip that debate and everyone went after Ted Cruz. And now Ted Cruz is in trouble. I have said this about Iowa before. It's proof last time with Santorum. Iowa voters do not like to be told what they are going to do on caucus night. I kept saying it all week long, you are underestimating the voters of Iowa. Not Ted Cruz. Not Marco Rubio. Not Donald Trump. You're underestimating the voters there. And what the voters said tonight was they didn't buy, for example, 2 Corinthians. They also said they really liked the authenticity of not only Ted Cruz but also I think Marco Rubio. And the big thing tonight is this. If you're Ted Cruz, you may have focused too much on Donald Trump and this war back and forth, because both candidates now, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, are in real trouble with Marco Rubio now. That's the big story coming out of there.</s>BERMAN: Ben, stand by. We understand there is out-and-out glee on the Ted Cruz campaign plane. It's on the ground in Des Moines getting ready to take off to fly to New Hampshire. Our Sunlen Serfaty is onboard the Cruz express. Sunlen, set the scene. What's the mood like onboard?</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John, it is a festive atmosphere aboard this plane where Senator Cruz and his family and daughters are here, about ready to take off to Manchester, New Hampshire. Before the plane took off, the flight attendants here onboard popped champagne and served champagne to Senator Cruz, his wife, and members of his staff. His oldest daughter, Caroline, only 7 years old, is having a little fun with her dad being the man of the moment. She is seated right next to her dad, greeting each and every reporter as they got on saying, "What's your name," and telling them to get to the back of the plane. It is a festive atmosphere. A party like atmosphere here on the Cruz plane. He will fly for three hours to New Hampshire, and then really hit the ground running. He tomorrow will have a town hall at 12:30 in Wyndham, New Hampshire. Then he'll go on, really wasting no time campaigning. Senator Cruz telling reporters as they got on the plane here tonight that he feels fabulous -- John?</s>HARLOW: And it's Poppy here with John. When you think of the first line that Cruz said tonight, he said, "To God be the glory." Then he went on to bash the establishment in Washington, the establishment in the media, and he said, this will be left up to we the people. How much is he thanking the evangelical vote tonight?</s>SERFATY: Absolutely. That was a big part of his message in his speech tonight, Poppy. He opened and closed his speech saying god bless Iowa. That was a big message to evangelicals. He knows they propped him up in large part for his win in Iowa. He is looking to this support going forward, especially looking past New Hampshire, when the campaign looks for support in South Carolina and the southern states. They are going to lean again on evangelicals. Very conservative Republicans. They want them on their side. It's always been a big part of their strategy. They have not really tried to appeal to moderate Republicans as much. Really they have tried to go straightforward to the evangelicals, very conservative Republicans. And that seems to be the message that Cruz was sending in his victory speech in Iowa tonight -- Poppy?</s>BERMAN: And now literally on to New Hampshire. Sunlen Serfaty, on the Ted Cruz campaign plane, a terrific report. Literally, popping champagne on board as they get ready to take off.</s>HARLOW: Where's ours?</s>BERMAN: We don't get any. We're on for the next 3.5 hours. We'll hear from Poppy (ph) when she lands in Manchester and find out how the champagne feels 3.5 hours later.</s>HARLOW: Exactly. It's go time. Go, go, go. I heard Rubio has an event at 6:45 in the morning. No one sleeping tonight.</s>BERMAN: You have to seize the moment.</s>BERMAN: For all of them, if things go well. Look, Ted Cruz won. Everyone wants to say there is Marco-mentum. But Ted Cruz won.</s>BERMAN: And he's the guy of all of them, I think, that has the right to pop the champagne. He's only one who's won so far. We don't even know who won the Democratic race.</s>HARLOW: That's true.</s>BERMAN: With all eyes turning to New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will take part in a presidential town hall Wednesday night. They may announce the winners of Iowa during the CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday night. Anderson Cooper will moderate. Both candidates will take questions from voters themselves. This will be fascinating. Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., only on</s>CNN. HARLOW: Coming up ahead for us, it is as we've been saying all night far too close to call at this hour on the Democratic side. What will the numbers bring in as they keep coming and coming throughout the night? We'll hear from what the Clinton camp has to say, next.