We still have until November for the presidential election, but it feels as if we have been talking about it for years already. The Virginia primary is on March 1, so The Jagwire felt everyone at Falls Church should get a chance to voice their opinion. We conducted a poll on Wednesday, January 13 in Jag 8. We ended up getting 585 viable ballots. The results of the poll are shown below.

The Iowa Caucus happened on February 1. Many thought that Donald Trump would perform well and win, but Ted Cruz actually took the victory with 28% of the vote, to Trump’s 24%. On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton very narrowly edged out Bernie Sanders to win—49.9% to 49.6%. This caucus showed that the presidential race will be a marathon for Clinton against Sanders.

The New Hampshire Primary happened on February 9. On the Republican side, Businessman Donald Trump won easily, with 35% of the vote. After him came John Kasich with 16%, Ted Cruz at 12%, Jeb Bush with 11%, and then Marco Rubio at 11%. The two surprises were Kasich’s impressive performance and Rubio’s noticeable falter after Iowa’s caucuses. On the Democratic side, Sanders easily defeated Clinton 60% to 38%.

We wanted to get the opinions from the presidents of our Young Republicans and Young Democrats clubs. The President of the Young Republicans is Katie Burke (12). She has been involved in the club since freshman year. “I think the primaries are an exciting time, especially because I can vote in this election. The real test for the candidates will be South Carolina and Nevada. Those two states better represent the population as whole.” Since Katie can vote this year she is looking forward to the Virginia primary, “Super Tuesday is going to be an exciting day. It will really show what the nation is thinking.”

The President of the Young Democrats is Thomas Woldemariam (12). He is heavily interested in politics and thinks that this will be an interesting primary season. “So far, Iowa and New Hampshire do not really tell how the election could turn out. They are two distinctive states without much of minority population. It will be interesting to see what the results of the following primaries will be. As in recent elections, I think the minority vote will be one of the big deciding factors especially in some of the next primaries.”

This was a first of its kind for The Jagwire. The results were similar to the national polls, with a just a few candidates moved to different positions. As of writing this article, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, and Rand Paul, whose names were on our January 13 poll ballot, have dropped out of the presidential race. Thank you for participating Falls Church!