Trump mocks delay of Iowa caucus results, Buttigieg declares early victory

Most caucus-goers were just looking for a winner to beat the president, instead of someone who agrees with them on the issues. IDP official: "This is not a hack or intrusion."

By OMRI NAHMIAS, REUTERS
Pete Buttigieg, Former Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana (photo credit: OMRI NAHMIAS)
Pete Buttigieg, Former Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana
(photo credit: OMRI NAHMIAS)
Iowa’s Democrats promised to begin to release long-delayed results on Tuesday afternoon from the party’s chaotic first voting in its process of picking a candidate to face Republican Donald Trump in the US presidential election taking place on Tuesday, November 3.
Troy Price, the party’s state chairman, said more than 50% of results from the Iowa caucuses would be released at 5 p.m. Eastern Time, 21 hours after voters gathered Monday night to choose a Democratic candidate in schools and community centers across the state.
Officials blamed inconsistencies related to a new mobile app used for vote counting for the highly unusual delay in releasing results in the state that traditionally kicks off a US presidential election year.
The delay enraged Iowa Democrats worried that the confusion would play into Trump’s hands, and prompted some Democratic candidates’ campaigns to question whether the results would be legitimate.
It was a clumsy start to 2020 voting, after a bad-tempered presidential campaign four years ago that produced a surprise winner in Trump and led to a two-year federal investigation into election interference by Russia.
“Every second that passes undermines the process a little bit,” said Roger Lau, campaign manager for Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Republicans asked how Democrats could run the country if they could not conduct a caucus, while Trump mocked the Democrats on Twitter, calling the delay an “unmitigated disaster.”
Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, expressed frustration with the delayed results on Tuesday, after having said at a late-night rally he was going to the next early voting state of New Hampshire victorious.
“I don’t think there’s a person in the country more impatient than I am” to get official results, he said on MSNBC.
Buttigieg and front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders released their campaigns’ own count of the Iowa vote which showed them having done well.
Trump took a swipe at the Democrats, 11 of whom are contenders in the state-by-state battle to face him in November.
“Nothing works, just like they ran the Country,” he wrote on Twitter. He also said the delay was not Iowa’s fault and pledged that Republicans would continue to uphold the tradition of early Iowa caucuses.
After more than a year of campaigning and more than $800 million in spending, the results in Iowa were expected to begin to provide answers for a party desperately trying to figure out how to beat the businessman-turned-president.
 
KATHY ANDERSON, a Des Moines resident, cheered Warren on but told The Jerusalem Post that she came to the caucus for Amy Klobuchar.
"She's intelligent; I feel she can beat Trump,” Anderson said. “She's a woman, and it's time for a woman. Men have been in charge and they haven't done so well, and now it's time for a woman.”
Like Anderson, Sue Harris supported Klobuchar as well, citing her pro-Israel positions. Harris, a member of Tifereth Israel synagogue, told the Post that the Minnesota senator is the only one who could bring people together.
"I'm disturbed a little bit about Warren and Sanders," she told the Post. "I think there are a lot of people in their camp who are very critical of Israel and don't know all the positives about Israel. [They] don't know all of the work that the Israelis are doing towards peace with the Palestinians, and there are some who don't even believe in the existence of the State of Israel, so I'm worried about that."
 "One of the reasons I like Klobuchar is that she has a very solid record on Israel," Harris continued. "She has a lot of energy. She's also very good at listening to everybody. She cares about everybody no matter what your political orientation is or other orientation. There are other candidates who will just end up facilitating more division in the country. And I think we'll swing from Left to Right and Reft to Light, and people arguing too much.
"I really want there to be not to the Left, not to the Right," she said. "I want people to come together. I want Shalom Bait [peace at home] – that's what I want."
Tyler Burrell, another Iowan, was standing with a small group of Andrew Yang supporters, who he admitted might not be a viable candidate. Yet, he said, "I don't have a backup player. I'm just going to wait it out. If all my people leave, then I'll follow them. But right now, I'm just going to wait it out."
 
At the end of the day, Warren's efforts paid off, and she finished in first place at the precinct, while former vice president Joe Biden came in fifth and was not a viable candidate. Most of his supporters left the place shortly after it was announced that he did not cross the threshold.
Andrew Perry, who works for a financial services company in Des Moines, told the Post that he was surprised and disappointed to see that Biden did not receive enough support. "I was a little surprised," he said. "I'll be curious to see how he performs in other precincts here in Des Moines. It is a little bit [disappointing], but you know, at the end of the day, it's a strong ticket across the bar. I could have caucused for pretty much any of the candidates here – and as of right now, he could still be viable after the second round. My initial thought is that it's not indicative of anything."
US President Donald Trump mocked the delay in results on Tuesday, releasing a statement saying that "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? Tonight, President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with a record turnout for an incumbent," his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement.
 
HERE ARE some highlights from the entrance poll based on interviews with 1,512 Iowa Democrats as they headed into the caucuses that kick off what could be a months-long nominating fight. The results will be updated as more interviews are collected.
-- 62% of caucus-goers said they were looking for a Democratic nominee who they think can beat Trump. Only 36% said they wanted a nominee who agrees with them on major issues.
-- 57% said they supported "replacing all private health insurance with a single government plan for everyone," an initiative known as Medicare for All, based on the government healthcare plan for older Americans. Some 38% said they opposed it. The results may be a good sign for progressive candidates US senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have championed Medicare for All on the campaign trail.
-- 37% said they were attending the Iowa caucuses for the first time, which appears to be below that of 2016. Four years ago, 44% of people attending the caucuses said they were doing so for the first time. In 2008, 57% said they were new to the Iowa caucuses.
-- 35% of Democrats said before entering the caucuses that they picked their candidate in the last few days. That appears to be higher than the number of late deciders in 2016. Four years ago, 16% of caucus-goers said they had made their choice in the last month or earlier.
-- 41% of Iowa caucus-goers said healthcare was the issue they cared most about when thinking about picking a nominee. Some 22% said it was the climate, 17% said it was income inequality and 14% said foreign policy.
-- The entrance poll also asked Democrats about which candidate they were supporting for the nomination. The selections are not predictive of the outcome, however, given that many Democrats will change their preferences if their chosen candidate does not win enough support in the caucuses.
Edison, a New Jersey-based exit-polling firm, has been providing Election Day poll data to a consortium of news organizations through the National Election Pool since 2004.


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