Buttigieg, Sanders lead partial returns in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa — Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders sat atop the field Tuesday in partial returns from the Iowa caucuses, which left the contest unresolved and the Democratic presidential race in turmoil more than 24 hours after the votes were cast.
The results reflected just 62% of returns, owing to a computer malfunction and other difficulties, with no word from the state party when the final outcome would be known.
Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., narrowly led Vermont Sen. Sanders 27% to 25% in state delegates awarded — the standard measure of victory in Iowa — followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 18%, former Vice President Joe Biden with 15% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 13%.
No other candidate had double-digit support.
In a separate measure, Sanders led Buttigieg in the popular vote by 1,190 ballots, followed by Warren, Biden and Klobuchar.
The results, should they stand up, would be a setback for Sanders, who nearly won the state four years ago and appeared to have the most momentum, and a big victory for Buttigieg, who a year ago was a political unknown with a hard-topronounce name and no political success beyond his hometown.
“It’s just an extraordinary validation for our belief that we can unify people,” Buttigieg said Tuesday on CNN after a New Hampshire campaign stop. “It amounts to a remarkable victory for our campaign and message.”
For now, however, Iowa’s full impact — like the outcome — remains to be seen.
As the place where the first ballots of the 2020 campaign were cast, the state was supposed to add clarity to the Democratic contest by thinning the field and hinting at the direction — ideological, generational — voters wished to pursue.
Instead, it compounded the confusion and unleashed a fresh round of finger-pointing and acrimony.
Candidates and their supporters were furious at the Iowa Democratic Party for its handling of the results. Iowa Democrats were angry at the national party for insisting on new ways of reporting the outcome.
Opponents of Sanders blamed him for the mess, noting he demanded changes after losing Iowa to Hillary Clinton. Backers of Sanders accused the party establishment of plotting once more to thwart him.
For many Democrats, it was a worrisome sign of unraveling at a time they hoped to start narrowing their choices to determine who could best take on President Donald Trump.
“Democrats need to take a long, hard look at what happened,” said Carrie Giddens, a professor of political writing at American University and a veteran of two Democratic campaigns in Iowa. “If we don’t learn from last night, from low turnout to the computer debacle, we have the potential to be in trouble for November.”
Not surprisingly, Trump and fellow Republicans took glee in the upheaval, suggesting the breakdown was symptomatic of the party’s larger failings. “The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster,” the president tweeted. “Nothing works, just like they ran the Country.”
Free-spending Democratic billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is skipping Iowa and other early-voting states to focus on California’s March 3 primary and beyond, saw opportunity. The former New York City mayor announced a dramatic expansion of his staff and an increase in his already voluminous TV advertising.
“After more than a year of this primary, the field is as unsettled as ever,” said Sabrina Singh, a Bloomberg spokeswoman. “No one has made the sale or even come close to it.”
With no clear winners, or losers, candidates stepped into the vacuum and sought to use the disarray to their advantage.
Before the party issued its partial returns, the Sanders and Buttigieg campaigns released their own favorable tabulations. Tom Steyer, the billionaire political activist, could hardly suppress a broad grin on MSNBC even as he acknowledged “the system had a very bad night.”