Massachusetts Senator John Kerry won the Iowa caucus Senator John Edwards came in a strong second in a night that shook up the race for the Democratic presidential nominee. Kerry received 38 percent of the Iowa delegates, Edwards received 31 percent. Coming in third was former Vermont Governor Howard Dean with 18 percent. Up until this week Dean was widely viewed as the race’s frontrunner. Congressman Richard Gephardt received 11 percent and Congressman Dennis Kucinich received one percent. Less than a month and a half ago, Zogby released a poll that former Howard Dean winning Iowa with more than 26 percent of the vote. Gephardt polled a close second. Neither Kerry nor Edwards cracked 10 percent. But over the past two weeks the campaigns of Kerry and Edwards soared while Dean and Gephardt’s faltered. The Christian Science Monitor described it as “one of the biggest turnabouts in modern electoral history.” Writing in the Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, writes that “just about everything you heard and read about the Iowa caucuses in November and December was wrong. The press would have done better if all the reporters had taken a long vacation.”