By Rio Duran

The presidential race is in full gear, and both of the majority parties are trying to decide who they want to represent them.

The Republican candidates are starting to thin out, but there is still a lot of competition. There are eight candidates running for the nomination at publication time, but this is subject to change. The front runner is business man Donald Trump. Trump has been in the lead for the majority of the election and has grown overly confident that he will win. He has gone as far as to say that he “could shoot someone on the streets of New York and not lose support”, and the scary thing is that he might be right. He’s made crazy accusations like this before, and people seem to eat it up. People are drawn to him because his confidence and his leadership. Even if that leadership is driven by hatred, people seem to like it.

Even though Trump has maintained control of the majority of the election that may come to an end. Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have made tremendous comebacks. In the past few weeks Cruz has gotten up to 8.5% behind Trump.
The only downside is that people can’t decide who’s worse between the two. Republicans have described the choice like choosing between being shot and being poisoned. But that’s where Rubio comes in. the Iowa caucus had many surprises for us, but perhaps the most shocking poll was that of Rubio. He climbed to the top three and is 11.7 % behind Trump. This gives him a strong chance to win the nomination since more and more people are starting to realize what an imbecile Trump is.

The sad thing is that even though people can see his ignorance he still took a commanding lead New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, Cruz and Rubio both fell in the polls as well. It’s going to be close between the three of them while the other five stand idly by as they take support away from the others. One of the biggest factors could end up being the other candidate’s supporters. With five other candidates, the numbers are a bit skewed. Whomever they decide to support when the others drop out could change the tides of battle. While all of these guys duke it out, let’s look at the much calmer side of things

The Democratic nominees are neck-and-neck in the battle for the nomination. After Martin O’Malley dropped out of the race due to his incredibly low results in Iowa, the race is left to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to compete for the election. Clinton was the winner by a large margin until Iowa and New Hampshire. This is where Sanders pulled ahead, evening out the race. Because of the close results in Iowa and his overall win in New Hampshire, he has managed to gain some ground on Clinton placing him within 2%. In fact, in New Hampshire, he won with a 20% lead. There are people who don’t want another Clinton in office and there are those who think that Sanders isn’t prepared for the job. The fact that they are the only two candidates in the Democratic Party means that it will be more straightforward and it really could be anyone’s game.

So who will be facing off in November, you ask? Based off of current national polls it seems to be a Trump vs. Clinton face-off. But if you look at Iowa then it is most likely that it will be Cruz vs. Clinton. Don’t forget New Hampshire because their polls predict a Sanders vs. Trump.

Moral of the story is that it’s still too early to call who the nominees are going to be because it’s still anyone’s game. You have people like Rubio and Sanders who are closing the distance on their more popular opponents, and you have people like Trump and Clinton who are falling in popularity because of their raising competition. There can still be plenty of surprises in the upcoming months, and we will just have to wait and see who will fight to run the country.