Buttigieg Wins Iowa Delegate Count, But Bernie Tops Popular Vote

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg won Monday’s Iowa caucus with 26.9% of the state delegates, followed by Sens. Bernie Sanders in second (25.1%) and Elizabeth Warren in third (18.3%) according to Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) Chair Troy Price, after 62% of statewide precincts were finally counted.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic ‘frontrunner’ if you believe national polls, came in fourth at an embarrassing 15.6%.

That said, Sanders won the popular vote with 27,088 vs. Buttigieg’s 23,666.

The results follow an embarrassing delay in reporting the Iowa caucus results was caused by a broken app developed by ex-Clinton and Obama staffers and bankrolled by a billionaire Buttigieg-backer, the IDP released ‘the majority of the results’ from Monday night’s mayhem.

After the controversial app from Shadow, Inc. failed miserably – preventing caucus site leaders from uploading the results at their locations, attempts were made to phone them in – only to wait on hold for more than an hour. One caucus chairman of a precinct in Story County was hung up on as he attempted to report their results.

“Well, Wolf, I have been on hold for more than an hour with the Iowa Democratic Party,” precinct captain Shawn Sebastian told CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer, adding “They hung up on me. They hung up on me.”

Oh my god@shawnsebastian, a Story County precinct captain, had been on hold with the Iowa Democratic Party for over an hour trying to report results.

CNN had him on to talk about the process. While on air, he got off hold.

Before he could get back to the call, IA Dems hung up pic.twitter.com/oIs7dC5buq

— jordan (@JordanUhl) February 4, 2020

The chaos was met by anger from the candidates’ campaigns – except Buttigieg, who declared victory and got out of dodge.

Former Vice President Joe Biden – who appears to have suffered a massive defeat based on preliminary estimates – effectively threatened to sue the IDP if they released the results before his campaign could see them. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, reportedly sent 5 lawyers to meet with party officials after he sent operatives to polling locations to gather independent counts.

I am now hearing that the Sanders campaign sent workers to every caucus to record the live results.

The DNC was unaware of this. When their early tallies did not match the recorded results from campaign workers, his campaign had 5 lawyers contact the DNC. Now they’re meeting.

— 🌹 Salem Snow For Congress (@Salem4Congress) February 4, 2020

Meanwhile, Buttigieg has made significant gains at online betting site PredictIt, who is now within striking distance of Biden.