• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, February 2, 2016

The snow waited for Iowa caucus-goers last night, in true friendly Midwest fashion. Finally, as Politico put it in an email blast, we have reached the “end of the beginning.”

Surprises abound.

The most striking — Sen. Marco Rubio’s stellar showing in the first electoral contest of the 2016 presidential cycle. He drastically beat expectations, raking in 23.1%. Rubio was never expected to win in Iowa, in the last Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll, he was projected a modest 15% of the vote.

Rubio did well at the expense of Donald Trump, who in the past few days, was polling about 5 points ahead of caucus winner, Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump finished with 24.3%, well shy of Cruz’s 27.7%.

Tellingly, when prompted by John Dickerson of CBS over the weekend to talk about the prospect of losing Iowa, Trump said: “No, I don’t have to win it. And right now, you and I are sitting in New Hampshire. And, as you know, I have a very substantial lead in New Hampshire.”

Trump does hold a strong lead in New Hampshire, but the lift from both his lead there and Cruz’s win in Iowa may be stymied by Rubio’s unexpected success.

According to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic contest was a “virtual tie.”

Hillary Clinton didn’t feel the same. She told a crowd in Iowa last night that she was “breathing a sigh of relief,” following the results. Accordingly, Clinton will leave Iowa with the largest share of delegates.

Bernie Sanders could emerge after the second electoral contest as the leader in the Democratic primary, however, with a whopping 31 point lead in New Hampshire, per a recent UMass poll.

In Des Moines yesterday evening, Sanders was his usual combative self with moments of deference, in what sounded very much like a victory speech. Both Clinton and Sanders spoke with admiration of Gov. Martin O’Malley, who announced the decision to end his bid for the Democratic nomination after a miserable showing.

Most telling, but the polls and the pundits were wrong.

Rubio’s strength was vastly underestimated. Though, in defense of the pollsters, he had the best showing of all the candidates among voters that made up their minds in the past week. Polls also missed Cruz’s staying power and organizational prowess.

In fairness, however, polling in Iowa has historically been inaccurate -- FiveThirtyEight published hours before the caucuses, an article titled: “Iowa Is The Hardest State to Poll.”