The US presidential campaign 2000 has kicked off in Iowa with the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, and the Governor of Texas, Mr George W. Bush, heading the polls and getting a boost for next week's primary election in New Hampshire.
The other contenders for the Democratic and Republican nominations are waiting for the final results to see if the Iowa caucus meetings will also help them with a better than expected showing.
About 200,000 Iowa voters turned out for 2,100 caucus meetings around the largely agricultural state for what is the first stage in the long campaign for the White House.
Registered Democratic and Republican voters gathered at meetings in local halls, fire stations, restaurants and even private homes last night after the candidates spent the day urging a good turnout.
The results of the voting will help decide the number of delegates that Iowa will send to the Democratic and Republican conventions next August. The presidential election will be on November 7th.
While there had been little doubt that Mr Gore and Mr Bush would head the poll of their respective parties in Iowa, the size of their wins and the performance of their rivals will be almost as important. The final results will not be known until some time today. The former Senator, Mr Bill Bradley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, is hoping to do better than the eve-of-election opinion poll in the Des Moines Register newspaper which showed him trailing Mr Gore by 56 per cent to 28 per cent. A defeat of that size would be a big disappointment for Mr Bradley, who has been campaigning in Iowa for the past year and has spent millions of dollars on TV advertisements.
Mr Bradley is hoping to exceed the 31 per cent which Senator Edward Kennedy received when he began his campaign for the presidency here in 1980 against President Carter. But regardless of the final result, Mr Bradley has said he will contest the future primaries against Mr Gore. "The longer the competition goes, the better chance that candidate is going to have," Mr Bradley said yesterday on ABC's Good Morning America.
Mr Bradley in a final rally urged college students to join "the move going forward". He said: "We could surprise a few people because you decide to go out and make that extra effort."
The newspaper poll showed Mr Bush with 43 per cent, ahead of Mr Steve Forbes with 20 per cent. Mr Bush's main rival for the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain of Arizona, did not campaign in Iowa.
Senator McCain wants to conserve his smaller funds for the New Hampshire and South Carolina primary elections in February. He is slightly ahead of Governor Bush in the opinion polls in New Hampshire but an exceptionally strong showing by Mr Bush in Iowa could influence independent voters in the northeastern state to plump for him.
Mr Forbes, the billionaire magazine publisher, is hoping to emerge from the Iowa caucuses as the strongest conservative candidate for the Republican nomination. A showing of over 20 per cent would help him to continue carrying the fight against Mr Bush and Senator McCain in New Hampshire, where there is a sizeable conservative electorate.
The other Republican candidates, Mr Gary Bauer, Mr Alan Keyes and Senator Orrin Hatch, have all campaigned in Iowa on a strong right-to-life conservative platform.
The final results for Mr Keyes, an African American former ambassador and media commentator, could be a surprise factor.