Amid uncertainty about the Iowa caucus results Monday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders told a cheering crowd in Des Moines that when the delegate counts are announced he will be “doing very very well here in Iowa.”
After hours waiting for the Iowa Democratic Party to announce who had won the contest, Sanders took the stage at his campaign’s caucus party with his extended family to thank his staff and volunteers.
“Let me begin by stating that I have a strong feeling that at some point the results will be announced. And when those results are announced I have a good feeling we are going to be doing very very well here in Iowa,” Sanders said late Monday.
“Now it is on to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, California, and onward to victory,” the Vermont senator said to loud cheers from his supporters.
Early Tuesday morning the Sanders campaign released it’s internal caucus results from nearly 40% of the Iowa precincts. The unverified numbers have the Vermont senator narrowly beating Buttigieg to come in first in the contest.
According to the Sanders campaign’s tally, the Vermont independent claimed 28.6% of state delegate equivalents ahead of Buttigieg, 25.7% and Warren, 18.4%. Biden, who’s campaign sent a letter to the Iowa Democratic Party urging it not to publicly release the results until candidates’ teams could respond, was fourth with 15%.
Sanders, along with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, addressed their supporters even as their fates in the first-in-the-nation-caucuses remained a mystery.
Pete Buttigieg, speaking almost an hour after some other candidates, claimed victory during his speech just before 12:30 a.m.
“So we don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation,” the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told his supporters. “Because by all indications we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”
Results from the more than 1,600 caucus locations had been projected to roll in between 8:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. But that was delayed after the Iowa Democratic Party reported trouble with a mobile app it was using to tabulate votes and call-in lines were jammed with thousands of county party chairs trying to reach party headquarters.
As of 11:49 p.m. Monday, 34 of 1750 precincts had reported — just 1.93% of the total vote — according to the Associated Press. Results won’t be available until later today.
Party officials told reporters part of the issue was that it was reporting multiple sets of caucus results this year: the initial count of candidate support — called the “first alignment” — the final alignment — after backers of “nonviable” candidates have had a chance to shift their support to someone else — and state delegate equivalents — the estimated number of state delegates won by each candidate.
This approach could potentially mean several different candidates could claim victory of the caucus — depending on which result they choose to stress.
Officials blamed flaws in the voting system for the delayed results.
For the past month, Sanders has been steadily rising in national and statewide polls, elevating him firmly to frontrunner status in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
According to the latest polling, Sanders leads in Iowa, but he remains locked in a tight contest with Biden and Pete Buttigieg.
Over the weekend, in the lead up to caucus night, the Vermont senator sprinted across Iowa telling supporters that strong participation is the difference between winning and losing.
“If there is a high voter turnout, we’re gonna win,” Sanders said during a rally Saturday in Cedar Rapids.
In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton narrowly beat Sanders — 49.84% to 49.59% — to claim 23 delegates to Sanders’ 21. But unlike four years ago, Iowa Democrats had many more options to choose from, which has the potential to disperse delegates among the eleven candidates in the race.
The uncertainty in Iowa comes a week before New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, a state where Sanders has solidified his first place position. Sanders is polling around 30% while his closest rival, Biden, is between 7 and 15 points behind him.
At 7:25 p.m. the Associated Press called the Iowa Republican caucuses for President Donald Trump.
The GOP contest was largely a symbolic show as the incumbent president does not face any viable challengers. It’s rare for Iowa to hold a Republican caucus with an incumbent in the White House. The contests were scrapped in both 1992 and 2004.
