Iowa Democrats are pointing fingers at President Trump supporters for exacerbating the state party’s delay in naming a winner of the opening 2020 primary contest.
After encountering glitches with a mobile app designed for Iowa precincts to report their results to party headquarters, caucus leaders resorted to phoning-in their alignment and delegate data.
But amid the chaos, the hotline number was posted online via photos of internal paperwork, contributing to some officials being placed on hold for hours.
Ken Sagar, a top Democrat on Iowa’s central committee who answered calls last Monday night, told party leaders during a teleconference Wednesday night that he spoke to people who instead wanted to convey their support for the president, according to Bloomberg News.
While the Iowa Democratic Party didn’t immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said he didn’t “know anything about that.”
“Perhaps Iowa Democrats should consider using a phone app that actually works next time. They are engulfed in the worst election embarrassment in modern history and they’re looking for someone to blame. It’s pathetic,” Murtaugh quipped.
NBC News reported Thursday internet trolls could have mobilized using 4chan message boards.
More than 48 hours after Iowa’s caucuses, the race appears to be a tie between former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 38, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 78, based on figures provided by 97% of precincts.
The past couple of days have been marked by turmoil, not only for Iowa Democrats but the Democratic Party as a whole, as questions swirl over whether the state should retain its first-in-the-nation status and whether the nation can trust the final results it delivers.
The 2020 candidates vying for the right to challenge Trump in the fall have already moved onto New Hampshire ahead of that state’s primary on Feb. 11. But the eventual winner will be denied the traditional “bump” in positive press coverage, polling, and fundraising usually experienced after finishing first in Iowa.
The Iowa Democratic Party first attributed the delay to “quality control” after noting “inconsistencies” in the data it had received from its precincts before it emerged the app had failed to send information to headquarters because of a “coding error.”
Since then, the state party has been slowly releasing batches of numbers, saying it was exercising an “abundance of caution” by verifying what they have against a paper trail of attendance records and preference cards. On Wednesday, however, it put out results that included a strong showing for former Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval, who didn’t compete in the kick-off caucuses.
