Hillary Clinton narrowly wins Democratic Iowa caucuses

DES MOINES, the United States, Feb. 2 -- Hillary Clinton won Bernie Sanders with a razor-thin lead in the Iowa caucuses, according to results announced by Iowa Democratic Party Tuesday.

In accordance with the official tally released early Tuesday with 100 percent of the 1,681 precincts being counted, Clinton garnered 49.8 percent while Sanders won 49.6 percent.

Clinton was thus awarded 700.59 state delegate equivalents, while Sanders got 696.82. In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire called the race a "historically close Iowa Democratic Caucus that featured one of our strongest turnouts ever."

According to McGuire, 171,109 Iowa Democrats took part in Monday night's caucuses.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O' Malley received less than 1 percent of the vote and was rewarded 7.61 state delegate equivalents, said the newly released results hours after O'Malley dropped out of the race.

Hours before the release of the official tally, Clinton's campaign had already declared victory in a statement in which the team said that after thorough reporting and analysis, "there is no uncertainty" that Clinton had "clearly won the most national and state delegates."

The victory in the midwest state of Iowa was crucial to Clinton as she was seeking to avoid the possibility of twin losses to kick off the nomination battle. According to polls conducted over months, Clinton was trailing Sanders by a large margin in New Hampshire, where the first primary election would be held on Feb. 9.