And the results are in…

As we were projecting in November, Huckabee and Obama won in Iowa on Thursday.  Overall, our projections for the top three in each party weren’t too far off, but again, predicting election returns is an art.  We had Obama coming in first, Clinton second, and Edwards third.  While we have the top three names correct, Edwards was able to steal second from under Clinton.  On the Republican side, We had Huckabee coming in first, Romney in second, and McCain in third.  We had the first two chosen correctly, but Thompson was able edge out McCain by 300 votes.  The final results were (according to CNN):

Democrats

Candidate State Delegates Percentage Pledged Delegates Obama 940 38% 16 Edwards 744 30% 14 Clinton 737 29% 15 Richardson 53 2% 0 Biden 23 1% 0 Uncommitted 3 0% 0 Dodd 1 0% 0 Gravel 0 0% 0 Kucinich 0 0% 0

Color key (by Dave Leip):  
Green – Barack Obama
Blue – John Edwards
Red – Hillary Clinton
Purple – tie (Clinton and Edwards)
Gray – tie (Clinton and Obama) 

Republicans

Candidate Total Votes Percentage Pledged Delegates Huckabee 39,814 34% 17 Romney 29,405 25% 12 Thompson 15,521 13% 3 McCain 15,248 13% 3 Paul 11,598 10% 2 Giuliani 4,013 4% 0 Hunter 515 1% 0

Color key (by Dave Leip):
Orange – Mike Huckabee
Green – Mitt Romney
Yellow – Ron Paul