We are now a week removed from the Iowa caucuses, and the Democrat party has yet to declare a winner. What we know now is in terms of delegates and popular vote there seems to be two different winners (sound familiar?). Iowa has 41 delegates to award for the Democrat convention. As of now the delegate count stands at Pete Buttigieg 13, Bernie Sanders 12, Elizabeth Warren 8, Joe Biden 6, and Amy Klobuchar 1. There is still a single delegate to be allocated which will go to the overall winner of Iowa. This will not be decided until after the re-canvass requested by the Sanders and Buttigieg campaigns (Associated Press 2020). In the Iowa caucuses there were two votes taken. There was an original vote and then there was a second vote when voters who where there for candidates that did not reach a designated threshold could then go and support a different candidate. In the first vote the totals were Bernie Sanders 24.72%, Pete Buttigieg 21.26%, Elizabeth Warren 18.44%, Joe Biden 14.93%, and Amy Klobuchar 12.74%. On the second vote it was Bernie Sanders 26.54%, Pete Buttigieg 25.04%, Elizabeth Warren 20.2%, Joe Biden 13.72%, and Amy Klobuchar 12.26% (Scott 2020). Buttigieg was able to edge out Sanders in the delegate count by winning 60 counties compared to 16 for Sanders (Associated Press 2020).
Now, we can look at the total failure of the Iowa Democrat party on election night. The first thing that went wrong was the fact that the app the the Iowa Democrats were using failed for nearly all of the 1,700 Iowa precincts. After the app failed, precinct leaders started to call their results in, but phone lines got backed up. This led to many of those who were supposed to report their results to leave. This led to the party having to call all those people throughout the next few days (Merica & Zeleny 2020). This led to the final results finally being finished yesterday, an entire week after the caucuses.
The caucus was held on February 3 and in the late afternoon on February 4 the Democrat party decided to release partial results which led to even more confusion. The Democrat part released about 50% of the vote which showed Bernie Sanders leading in raw votes, but Pete Buttigieg was leading in the delegate count. These early results led to many believing that the Democrats were once again rigging the election against Bernie Sanders. The Iowa Democrats, instead of fixing the problem by releasing partial results, made their problems much worse.
With all of the problems in Iowa the typical surge that the winner gets going into New Hampshire was taken away. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg would have went into the next primary with a lot of media attention were it not for the fumble by the Iowa Democrats. There was still a major winner and a major loser in the Iowa caucuses.
Joe Biden is the big loser of Iowa. He came in third-place and Amy Klobuchar was close behind him. This was a gut punch for Joe Biden. He is now staring down a fifth place finish in New Hampshire after leaving for South Carolina midday before any results were announced. Going into Nevada and South Carolina, if Joe Biden does not have two huge wins his campaign will be written off before Super Tuesday (Terris 2020).
The big winner in my book is Amy Klobuchar. She had a very strong fourth place finish in Iowa. Klobuchar went on to have a very strong debate performance. These strong performances were rewarded with strong poll results heading into the New Hampshire primary. With Joe Biden dropping like a brick, Amy Klobuchar could take the moderate lane.
If Iowa was any indication of how the rest of the primary process will go it will be very interesting. Iowa was supposed to help clear the field which did not happen. It looks like New Hampshire will be the nail in the coffin for many candidates that are hanging on by a thread. Heading into Nevada and South Carolina it looks like a five person race and six when you add Mike Bloomberg. I have no idea at this point how this will end. There are so many scenarios that can play out in the coming weeks and months. I am excited to see how the rest of the process plays out.
Sources
Associated Press. (2020, Feb 10). Final results from Iowa caucuses were released. Here’s why the AP still hasn’t called the winner. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-nw-cb-iowa-caucus-results-explained-20200210-gtsyurbmcvd5zm5fdxkfo5emta-story.html
Gabbatt, Adam. (2020, Feb 11). Amy Klobuchar makes late surge as New Hampshire votes. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/amy-klobuchar-new-hampshire-surge-voters
Merica, Dan; Zeleny, Jeff. (2020, Feb 4). How jammed phone lines and a failing app created chaos in Iowa. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/04/politics/iowa-caucuses-what-happened/index.html
Riccardi, Nicholas. (2020, Feb 5). What happened in Iowa and what’s next after caucus mess. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/0fe3fad38fb174de808553293c06bbe8
Scott, Dylan. (2020, Feb 9). With all the votes counted, Pete Buttigieg won the Iowa caucuses — but Bernie Sanders is challenging. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/9/21125703/iowa-caucuses-2020-final-results-pete-buttigieg-wins
Terris, Ben. (2020, Feb 11). After a ‘gut punch’ in Iowa, a surreal feeling surrounds Biden’s campaign. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/02/11/trail-with-joe-biden-what-happens-when-electability-candidate-starts-lose/
Politics with Kegan Prentice 