Right now it's a PM here in the East Coast and we have a major election alert at this hour

Which means George have just closed at caucus sites across Iowa Republicans there kicking off the process of picking the next president of the US.

The NBC News Decision Desk has made its first characterization

that this race is now too early to call,

but former President Trump is leading.

A reminder of what's at stake tonight, right? 40

delegates, that's a small fraction of the 1215 needed to secure the Republican

nomination. It's about 1.5%. But a strong performance in Iowa, of course, can catapult a campaign. We have full

team coverage all across the Hawkeye state with voting now underway our correspondence

inside those caucus sides and at campaign headquarters as we've been showing you.

But first, I do want to go back to NBC News's

chief political analyst Chuck Todd here with me in studio.

And Chuck, just give me your immediate reaction

to this characterization.

Again, the poll numbers have been showing that that

much we know but I think it's really important because people are going

wait wait wait wait wait the voting just started and you guys already know what's

going on it look our entrance poll showed us a lot, okay?

He led, you know, there's outside the margin of error.

Look, we are really confident he's likely,

that he's likely going to win this thing let alone have the lead all night so we don't say those things unless we're in the 90% tiles of believing 95 plus percent.

And again if you just want your coverage...

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