MILFORD, New Hampshire — Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg each started to claim victory in the Iowa caucuses after partial results were released, despite incompleteness, based on different figures.
Buttigieg, 38, who rarely shows emotion on the campaign trail, choked up on Tuesday when he spoke to supporters in Laconia, New Hampshire, which shows him leading in state delegate equivalents, the traditional reporting metric used by news organizations to crown a winner.
With 62% of precincts reporting, Buttigieg leads with 26.9% of state delegate equivalents while the Vermont senator has 25.2%. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has 18.3%, and former Vice President Joe Biden has 15.6%.
The data so far “validates for a kid somewhere in a community wondering if he belongs or she belongs — they belong — in their own family, that if you believe in yourself and your country, there’s a lot backing up that belief,” the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and first openly gay candidate for the White House said Tuesday.
But because the Iowa Democratic Party for the first time this year released raw vote totals for first and final alignments in the caucuses, Sanders, 78, had ammunition to boast about his results.
Similar to the Electoral College, it is possible that the candidate who wins the most delegates in Iowa fails to win the most raw votes on final alignment. Sanders has support from 28,220 people on the final alignment vote in the 62% of precincts reporting so far, while Buttigieg has 27,030, Warren has 22,254, and Biden has 14,176.
At a campaign rally further south, in Milford, Sanders touted his trend line toward a popular vote win.
“I am very proud to tell you that, last night in Iowa, we received more votes on the first and second round than any other candidate,” Sanders said to wild cheers.
After the crowd died down, he qualified the result: “Now, that is with 62% of the vote in. For some reason, in Iowa, they are having a little bit of trouble counting the votes, but I am confident that, here in New Hampshire, I know that you’ll be able to count those votes on election night.”
The Iowa Democratic Party released the first precinct results on Tuesday about 20 hours after the first results were expected. The embarrassing delay, which frustrated candidates, was due in part to a coding error in an app meant to report results from precincts to party headquarters.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, whose campaign had for months downplayed expectations heading into Iowa, met those low standards, with 16% of state delegate equivalents. His team on Monday night sent an angry letter to the Iowa Democratic Party over its handling of the debacle, which many interpreted as a sign of internal jitters about the results.
“Twenty-four hours later, they’re still trying to figure out what the heck happened in Iowa. At this rate, New Hampshire may get the first vote after all,” he said in Concord.
He insisted that “there’s nothing to come back from yet.” He has long pegged his presidential hopes on South Carolina and the 14 Super Tuesday states that weigh in on the primary on March 3.
“But I’d like you to rocket me out of here to make sure this thing works, OK?” he said.
