President Trump’s reelection campaign capitalized on embarrassing delays in reporting the results from Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses.
“Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?” Trump reelection campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement late Monday night. “Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent.”
Despite the state Democratic Party initially indicating that first precinct results could come in as early as 9:30 p.m. ET, it reported no results as of 12:30 a.m. ET. Analysts suspected that difficulties using a mobile app meant to report caucus site results and struggles reporting new metrics of raw vote totals contributed to the snafu.
The delay fueled speculation and concerns among campaigns that the delay was the result of foul play or inaccurate counting. An Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson pinned the holdup on “inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” and was not the result of “a hack or an intrusion.”
As the night wore on with no results coming in, candidates began to their give speeches to supporters at post-Iowa caucus parties in Iowa, each projecting a victorious tone even though results remained a mystery.
Trump sailed to victory in the 2020 Iowa Republican caucuses, winning the contest with 97% of the vote when the Associated Press made the call.
