MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Voters may not have a full picture of what exactly happened during the Iowa caucuses, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is confident that he won the contest.
At a Thursday press conference Thursday afternoon in New Hampshire, Sanders attacked the Iowa Democratic Party for its oversight of its caucuses on Monday, while maintaining a triumphant tone on the results.
“What I want to do today, three days late, is to thank the people of Iowa for the very strong victory they gave us in the Iowa Caucuses,” Sanders said.
As of Thursday, 97% of precincts had reported results. Although former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is leading in the traditional way of counting a winner — known as state delegate equivalents — Sanders maintains a lead in the raw vote count.
“These state delegate equivalents have greatly diminished importance from past caucuses. And they should. In the past,” said Sanders, “a candidate with more delegates to the state and county conventions could actually change the number of national delegates — delegates that go to the national convention — from that allocated on caucus night. That is no longer the case.”
When asked if the discrepancies in the vote count made him rethink the results of the previous Iowa caucus, Sanders told the Washington Examiner that he didn’t “want to revisit 2016,” but made it clear he still had questions.
“Now, I can’t give you a definitive answer as to what happened in 2016, I don’t know, I don’t think anybody knows. It turned out that in 2016 ,I think, Secretary Clinton got one or two more delegates than we got in the state process. There is some supposition that we actually won the popular vote, I can’t say definitively,” he said. “I can say definitively that in 2020, we did win the popular — now I want to reiterate do, so we’re clear, You got 180,000 people voting, when you got eight candidates, when you win the popular vote by 6000 votes, that is a pretty good victory.”
Buttigieg, 38, declared victory on Monday night before any results were actually in.
The leader of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday said he has doubts about the figures released so far.
“Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results,” tweeted DNC Chairman Tom Perez Thursday. “I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”
A re-canvassing of results is a step just short of an official recount and involves the double-checking of existing records. A re-canvassing of the Iowa results would likely involve having local party officials verify ballots with how they were officially recorded. A recount, on the other hand, is a court-ordered process that is often much more time-consuming and involves a number of mandated steps.
