KEOKUK, IA (KTVI) - Some Iowans woke up Tuesday morning regretting they failed to caucus. The democratic race featuring Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders ended in a virtual tie. Clinton squeaked out a victory thanks to her supporters. Merissa Lewiston attended a democratic caucus in Keokuk.
“You’ve got this many people in this corner, and this many people over there,” said Lewiston. “I felt a lot more like I mattered as an individual voter.”
Lewiston caucused for Sanders. She was disappointed over how narrow of a defeat her candidate suffered.
“If we would have had 5 or 6 more people show up, we would have had Bernie Sanders in the lead with our precinct instead of Hillary,” said Lewiston. “It was really interesting to see just how much every single vote did count.”
There was some controversy on the republican side. Ted Cruz representatives told Iowa caucus goers Ben Carson dropped out of the race. That wasn’t true. Cruz apologized Tuesday. The Iowa winner said his supporters misunderstood a CNN report saying Carson was going to Florida after the Iowa caucuses.
Carol Ryland attended the republican caucus at Keokuk High School. She heard the erroneous statement.
“He (Cruz representative) went out of the room and everybody kind of said, well how do we know that’s true? Ryland did not feel the statement swayed any caucus goers.
“I don’t think it made any difference,” said Ryland.