UPDATES: Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders ahead in early Iowa results

Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his mom Anne Montgomery, left, greet supporters at a caucus night campaign rally, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Charlie Neibergall, Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

DES MOINES, Iowa – After a long delay, Iowa Democrats have released some caucus results.

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Here’s the latest on the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses:

7:50 p.m.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez wants “absolute transparent accounting” of the technological meltdown that led to delayed results from Monday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses.

Perez said in a statement Tuesday that “what happened last night should never happen again.” Saying it was “clear” the app used to tally caucus results failed, Perez called on the vendor to “provide absolute transparent accounting” of what happened.

Perez says the party has staff “working around the clock” to help count remaining votes. Nevada Democrats scrapped plans to use similar technology at their caucuses, coming several weeks from now. Officials in other early voting states expressed confidence in their primary election systems.

The Iowa Democratic Party released partial results Tuesday after technological failures caused a daylong delay. The numbers show former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the contest. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar are trailing.

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7:20 p.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is poking fun at the lack of clarity coming from the Iowa caucuses as he makes his second stop in New Hampshire.

Speaking in Concord on Tuesday, the former vice president emphasized health care and his record of achievements as other major 2020 rivals were cheering on their success in the initial data coming out of Iowa.

“Twenty-four hours later, they’re still trying to figure out what the heck happened in Iowa,” Biden said with a laugh. “At this rate, New Hampshire might get the first vote after all.”

Initial data released by the Iowa Democratic Party late Tuesday afternoon shows Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders ahead in the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

The tally of state delegate equivalents shows Elizabeth Warren, Biden and Amy Klobuchar trailing behind. The results were delayed because of technical malfunctions.

“There’s nothing to come back from yet, but I’d like you to rocket me out of here to make sure this thing works, OK?” Biden said. “Because if I come out of here well, you guys are going to set the tone for the whole, whole rest of the race.”

5:25 p.m.

The campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar says early results from the Iowa caucuses indicate “that this is a five-person race.”

The Iowa Democratic Party released partial results Tuesday after technological failures caused a daylong delay. The numbers show former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the first-in-the-nation contest. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Klobuchar are all trailing.

The results reflected 62% of precincts in the state.

Klobuchar campaign manager Justin Buoen tweeted: “Some of Amy’s strongest counties haven’t been fully reported and the current data doesn’t tell the full story. We’re in a virtual tie with VP Biden and we look forward to making our case in New Hampshire.”

The Minnesota senator is holding three town halls in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

4:15 p.m.

Initial data released by the Iowa Democratic Party shows Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders ahead in the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

The tally of state delegate equivalents released Tuesday shows Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar trailing behind.

The party released 62% of results from all 99 counties after a daylong delay sparked by technical problems. It was unclear when the remaining results will be released by the party, which says it is still verifying data from caucuses across the state.

Earlier Tuesday, Buttigieg claimed on “CBS This Morning” that his performance in Iowa was “phenomenal,” especially given the fact that he had started his presidential campaign with little name recognition.

4:05 p.m.

The Iowa Democratic Party is releasing initial and incomplete results of Monday’s Democratic caucuses after a daylong delay sparked by technical problems.

Three sets of results will be reported. They are the “first alignment” of caucusgoers, the “final alignment” and the number of “state delegate equivalents” won by each candidate.

The Associated Press will declare the winner of the Iowa caucuses based on the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate receives.

That’s because Democrats choose their overall nominee based on delegates.

While the other results provide insights into the process, state delegate equivalents have the most direct bearing on the metric Democrats use to pick their nominee.

4 p.m.

The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party says the delay in caucus reporting results was “unacceptable.”

Troy Price said Tuesday that the party will conduct a “thorough, transparent and independent examination” of what caused the delays. He apologized for the breakdown in the process but says the results the party will begin to release on Tuesday are accurate.

The party has faced fierce criticism from presidential candidates who competed in Monday’s caucuses. The reporting delays, which were sparked by technical issues with an app, also revived questions about whether Iowa should hold the nation’s first contest.

Price says results from 62% of precincts from all of Iowa’s 99 counties will soon be reported.

2:10 p.m.

The company at the center of the Iowa caucus fiasco says it regrets that an app it designed had technical glitches that delayed the release of the results from the first nominating contest of 2020.

But while Shadow Inc. pledged on Tuesday to do better in the future, it stopped short of apologizing.

The company said in a series of tweets: “We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers.”

Monday’s first-in-the-nation Iowa contest was supposed to bring clarity to a muddled field of contenders with no clear front-runner. But instead, election officials across the state struggled to report the outcomes of individual caucuses using the company’s app. And the outcome of the race still wasn’t clear on Tuesday.

Campaign finance records show the Iowa Democratic Party spent about $60,000 on the app.

1:55 p.m.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is defending the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus status as Democrats struggle to get results released.

The Republican governor said Tuesday that the state must fight to remain first after a mobile app created to compile and report caucus results malfunctioned, delaying the count.

No results have been released yet. The Iowa Democratic Party says it will release a majority of the results later Tuesday.

Reynolds says that Iowa fights every year to stay first and that political leaders must demonstrate that adequate measures have been taken to ensure accurate results.

She says the parties worked together after the 2012 caucuses to maintain faith in the system after Republicans named Mitt Romney the winner, only to find out later that Rick Santorum had more votes.

1:30 p.m.

The campaign is back on.

As uncertainty reigns over the results of Iowa’s caucuses, Joe Biden is in New Hampshire criticizing his 2020 rival Bernie Sanders over “Medicare for All.”

During his first campaign stop of the day in Nashua, Biden said the Vermont senator has talked about single-payer health care for “30 years now.”

“Hasn’t moved it an inch,” the former vice president said Tuesday.

Sanders remains popular in New Hampshire and has touted his signature health care policy idea frequently during his campaign trips in the state. Supporters often point to his consistency on issues as a reason they plan to vote for Sanders.

“It’s not going anywhere now,” Biden said of Medicare for All. “The speaker of the House isn’t for it. Most Democrats in Congress are not for it. So how’s it going to pass? How’s it going to move? How does it get done? You can’t give a speech about it. It actually has to get done.”

New Hampshire is the second state in the nation to vote, holding its presidential primary on Feb. 11.

Democrats are still awaiting the results of Monday’s Iowa caucuses, which were besieged by technical issues. The Iowa Democratic Party says it will release a majority of the results later Tuesday.

11:50 a.m.

The Nevada Democratic Party is trying to quell fears it will face a chaotic reporting system at its Feb. 22 caucuses. The party says it can “confidently say” that the problems Iowa Democrats experienced with reporting their caucus results Monday “will not happen in Nevada.”

Nevada Democratic party chair William McCurdy II said in a statement Tuesday morning that Nevada will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus.

The party had previously announced plans to use an app to tabulate results at caucuses, as Iowa did, along with a second app that would be preloaded onto tablets available for voters to use at caucus sites during four days of early voting.

McCurdy said Nevada Democrats had already developed “a series of backups and redundant reporting systems and are currently evaluating the best path forward.”

The party did not respond to a follow-up message asking if the party had already planned to use a different app and vendor or if that was a change made in the wake of Iowa’s delayed results and technical problems.

11:35 a.m.

The Iowa Democratic Party says it plans to release at least 50% of results from Monday’s caucuses on Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m.

Party chairman Troy Price tells presidential campaigns on a conference call that “we are going to release the majority of results that we have by 4 p.m. today.”

Technical problems have delayed the release of results from the first-in-the-nation contest, leaving campaigns and the public in the dark.

Price says the party is collecting paper records from more than 1,600 caucus sites “to make sure we have all of the documented information in place.”

Price says results from about 50% of precincts should be released Tuesday. It was not clear when the final results would be available.

11:25 a.m.

New Hampshire’s top elections official says the state has “kept it simple” when it comes to elections and that he doesn’t expect New Hampshire to encounter problems in its Feb. 11 primary.

He says, “The more moving parts that you have in the election process, the more room there is for something to not function right.”

Bill Gardner’s remarks Tuesday came as the Iowa Democratic Party still hasn’t released the results of its caucuses the night before.

New Hampshire runs a primary, not a caucus. People will vote via paper ballots that about 85 percent of towns will count electronically. Gardner says, “you can’t hack a pencil.”

Gardner says he’s not worried about New Hampshire losing its status as the first primary state despite hand-wringing about the state’s lack of diversity. He says the same conversation happens every four years.

8:45 a.m.

The Iowa Democratic Party says delays in reporting the outcome of Monday’s caucuses were due to a coding issue that has been fixed. The party says it hopes to release results “as soon as possible.”

In a statement Tuesday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price says, “We have every indication that our systems were secure and there was not a cyber security intrusion.” Price says independent cybersecurity consultants tested the systems in preparation for the caucuses.

Candidates left Iowa Monday night for New Hampshire without the outcome of the contest being announced, a debacle that renewed criticism of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and the caucus format.

Price says as results came in Monday night from more than 1,600 caucus sites the state party ran them through “an accuracy and quality check” and “it became clear there were inconsistencies with the reports.” Price says it took time to investigate the cause, which was later determined to be a coding issue in the app precinct leaders were using to report some data.

Price says state party staff used “pre-planned measures and entered data manually,” which took longer than expected. He says the party has used required back-up paper documentation to verify data recorded in the app was accurate and to calculate delegate counts.

7:30 a.m.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has picked up the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy.

As the Democratic presidential hopefuls turn to New Hampshire, Kennedy called Biden the party’s “best bet to win the White House, keep the gains we made in the House, and put the Senate in play.”

The former ambassador to Japan announced her decision to endorse Biden in an opinion article Tuesday in the Boston Globe.

The endorsement comes the day after Iowa’s caucuses, which ran into technical problems that resulted in delays in results being released. Several Democratic candidates headed to New Hampshire, which holds its presidential primary next week.

7:20 a.m.

Pete Buttigieg is starting his day in New Hampshire visiting with a local mayor and drinking black coffee after an overnight flight from Iowa.

He told Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess, who endorsed him Tuesday morning, that the lack of timely Iowa results was “frustrating.”

But he claimed on “CBS This Morning” that his performance in Iowa was “phenomenal,” especially given the fact that he had started his presidential campaign with little name recognition.

“They said we shouldn’t even be here. And now, here we are, in the position that we are in, coming into New Hampshire for what we think will be another historic night a week from today,” he said.

Buttigieg has back-to-back events planned around the state on Tuesday. His supporters, including Donchess, say the New Hampshire primary will matter even more after Iowa was slow to report results.

Activist Dan Weeks told Buttigieg an oft-repeated phrase in the state: “Iowa picks corn. New Hampshire picks presidents.”

3:50 a.m.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren says her Democratic presidential campaign is built to compete across the country.

Stepping off a charter flight from Iowa to New Hampshire before dawn Tuesday, Warren said, “Our organizers in Iowa are now leaving there and going to all the other places where we’re on the ground.”

She says her campaign is active in 31 states and involves 1,000 people nationwide.

Warren says, “This is an organization that is built for the long haul.”

She didn’t answer a question about other candidates who declared victory in Monday night’s Iowa caucuses. Technology problems and reporting “inconsistencies” had kept Iowa Democratic Party officials from releasing results.

She says Iowa “was too close to call and it still is.”

12:15 a.m

The Iowa Democratic Party says it expects to release data from the Iowa caucuses later Tuesday.

Chairman Troy Price says the party is manually verifying its data against paper backups but says systems are taking “longer than expected.” He said the delays were the result of a reporting issue, not a hack or intrusion.

Price addressed reporters shortly after the party updated presidential campaigns about the status of the delayed results in the kickoff caucuses. He did not take any questions in the call with reporters.

Even without official results, some candidates have tried to declare victory and claim momentum based on their own internal data. The Associated Press has not called a winner of Monday’s caucuses.


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