For months, Donald Trump had dominated the Republican presidential campaign.
He dominated television coverage. He drew enormous crowds. He survived controversies that might have ended more conventional campaigns. And as the Republican Party approached the first actual voting of the 2016 presidential race, Trump was leading the polling in Iowa.
Then voters finally had their say.
On February 1, 2016, Donald Trump lost.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz won the Iowa Republican caucuses with 51,666 votes, or 27.64 percent.
Trump finished second with 45,429 votes, or 24.30 percent.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio nearly caught him, finishing just behind Trump with 43,228 votes, or 23.12 percent.
After months of speculation about whether Trump's enormous rallies and commanding media presence would translate into actual votes, the first contest of the Republican nomination had produced an unexpected answer.
Trump was a serious candidate.
But he wasn't invincible.
Trump Had Been Leading the Polls
The result was particularly notable because the final polling averages had Trump ahead.
The RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls conducted during the final week showed Trump at approximately 28.6 percent, Cruz at 23.9 percent and Rubio at 16.9 percent.
Instead, Cruz finished first.
Rubio substantially exceeded his polling average.
And Trump finished second.
Iowa demonstrated something campaigns have learned repeatedly: enthusiasm in polls and enormous crowds do not automatically translate into victory in a caucus.
Caucuses require organization.
Supporters have to know where to go, show up at a specific time and participate in a party-run political process.
Cruz had invested heavily in building precisely that kind of organization across Iowa.
On caucus night, it paid off.
Cruz Wins
Cruz declared victory before supporters in Des Moines.
His campaign had spent months courting Iowa's conservative and evangelical voters while constructing an extensive grassroots organization throughout the state.
The final certified results gave Cruz eight Iowa delegates.
Trump received seven.
Rubio also received seven.
The numerical difference in delegates was small.
The political significance was much larger.
The first Republican contest of the 2016 presidential election had been held — and Donald Trump had not won it.
Trump Initially Accepts the Result
Trump's reaction that night was notably restrained.
Standing before supporters, he congratulated Cruz and thanked the people of Iowa.
He also pointed toward the next contest in New Hampshire.
It was a relatively conventional concession from a candidate whose campaign had been anything but conventional.
For a brief moment, the Iowa result appeared settled.
That didn't last.
Trump Says Cruz “Stole” Iowa
Two days later, Trump's tone changed dramatically.
Trump accused Cruz of having improperly influenced the caucus and argued that the results should be nullified.
The controversy centered largely on the Cruz campaign's handling of reports involving Ben Carson.
As caucus voting was beginning, the Cruz campaign circulated information suggesting Carson was taking time away from campaigning after Iowa. Carson's campaign complained that Cruz's operation had created the false impression that Carson was dropping out of the presidential race.
Cruz subsequently apologized to Carson for the way his campaign had handled the information.
Trump went considerably further.
On February 3, he wrote on Twitter that Cruz had not legitimately won Iowa and accused him of stealing the contest.
Trump called for either new voting or for the Iowa results to be nullified.
There was no new caucus.
The Iowa Republican Party's certified results continued to show Cruz as the winner.
The First Sign of a Pattern
The episode was important for reasons extending beyond one caucus.
Trump had entered Iowa expecting to compete for victory.
When he lost, he initially accepted the result publicly.
Within days, however, he was alleging that wrongdoing by an opponent had deprived him of a legitimate victory.
The allegations did not change the official result.
Ted Cruz remained the winner of the 2016 Iowa Republican caucuses.
Donald Trump remained the runner-up.
But Iowa was only the beginning.
Next Stop: New Hampshire
If Trump's campaign had collapsed after Iowa, the caucus would now be remembered as the moment Republican voters stopped the political phenomenon that had dominated the previous seven months.
That isn't what happened.
The presidential calendar moved immediately to New Hampshire.
And unlike Iowa's caucus system, New Hampshire would hold a traditional primary election.
Trump would arrive there with something new to prove.
For all the rallies, television appearances, controversies and polls, he still had never won an election.
That was about to change.