WASHINGTON — After months of campaigning, the Iowa caucuses are kicking off the months-long Republican presidential primary process.
Polls suggest former President Donald Trump entered Monday with a massive lead as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis duel for a distant second.
At stake are Iowa’s 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, and perhaps more importantly, bragging rights and momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary.
Unlike a traditional primary, polls don't close at a specific time. Instead, 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. Eastern) is the deadline for voters taking part to arrive at their caucus site, at which point deliberations among caucus-goers begin behind closed doors.
Here's a breakdown of updated election results for Iowa's Republican caucus.
When will Iowa caucus results be in?
The length of the caucus meetings will vary from location to location, with most lasting about one hour to 90 minutes. Caucuses in some precincts have lasted up to three hours. However, voting for presidential candidates will be one of the first items of business at every caucus site, with votes counted and announced at each precinct immediately afterward.
In the 2016 GOP caucuses, the AP first reported results at 8:32 p.m. ET, or 32 minutes after the caucuses convened. The caucus night tabulation ended at 12:50 a.m. ET with 99.9% of total votes counted.
Trump predicted he would set a modern-day Republican caucus record with a margin-of-victory exceeding the nearly 13-percentage-point victory that Bob Dole earned in 1988. Still, he played down expectations that he would eclipse 50%, preempting any criticism that a majority of Republican voters might prefer someone else.