Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders lead the pack in the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, according to partial results released by the Iowa Democratic Party a day after the first-in-the-nation nominating contest.
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor has about 27% of state delegate equivalents, narrowly topping the Vermont senator at 25%, according to data the state organization shared from 62% of precincts. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., follows at about 18%, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden with just under 16%, according to the data. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has more than 12% of support.
Technical glitches with an app used to report caucus data delayed results typically released the night of the Iowa presidential caucuses, which took place Monday. Candidates started to move on to New Hampshire on Tuesday ahead of its Feb. 11 primary, but not before they put positive spin on the Hawkeye State outcome in the absence of official numbers.
Iowa Democratic Party spokeswoman Mandy McClure said earlier that the organization would announce figures from a “majority” of precincts, then “continue to release the results as we are able to.”
Just before the party released its first batch of results Tuesday, its Chairman Troy Price apologized for the botched reporting process. He called it “unacceptable.” Price said Iowa Democrats would undertake a “thorough, transparent and independent examination of what occurred.”
Price said the party faced “multiple reporting challenges” including a “coding error” in the app used at caucus sites. He noted that Iowa Democrats have taken their time out of an “abundance of caution” to make sure the data is accurate. Price said the party has a paper trail to verify electronically reported data.
The party has stressed that a cyberattack or intrusion did not cause the technological issues.
Multiple Democratic campaigns criticized the delay in releasing results. The chaos fueled more calls from observers to do away with caucuses or Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.
In the absence of results, campaigns announced internal tallies — which can skew toward their candidates. The data suggested some combination of Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren were competing at the top of the caucus field.
Buttigieg declared victory early Tuesday morning — the only candidate to do so before the state party released any data. Speaking in New Hampshire after Iowa Democrats released results, he said a campaign that “some said should have no business even making this attempt has taken its place at the front of this race.”
Speaking before results were released Tuesday, Sanders said “we’re not declaring victory.”
In statement after Iowa Democrats unveiled partial results, Sanders advisor Jeff Weaver said the campaign was “gratified” that the senator led in by two of the three metrics the party released. Sanders had the highest share of support when caucus voters chose their first preference and second alignments in the precincts shared by the state part. But trailed in state delegate equivalents.
Biden’s campaign was particularly critical of the state party. A Biden campaign lawyer sent a letter to the state party on Monday saying “we believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released,” NBC News reported.
The Biden campaign aimed to convince donors Tuesday that the former vice president could win the third and fourth nominating contests in Nevada and South Carolina, respectively, after early indications suggested he could trail his top rivals in Iowa.
