The Iowa Democratic Party seems to have announced a projected caucus winner in the middle of the Oscars, in case anyone’s still paying attention.
According to the Washington Post, the Iowa Dems announced on Sunday night that Pete Buttigieg is expected to net a total 14 delegates from Tuesday’s meltdown of a caucus, with Bernie Sanders tailing him with a total of 12. Sanders still got 6,000 more votes than Buttigieg, but state delegates are awarded based on the final vote total at each caucus site weighed by county representation at the Iowa state convention.
Of course, lest you think this is the last work on Iowa, the Associated Press reported on Sunday night that “it believes the results may not be fully accurate,” and will therefore not confirm Buttigieg as the caucus winner. Meanwhile, Sanders’s campaign is calling for a partial recanvass over the allocation of seven delegates, so it’s hard to know how this will shake out in the end anyway.
The Washington Post says Elizabeth Warren trails Sanders with eight delegates, and Joe Biden, who got trounced, netted only 6. Caucus results or no caucus results, the candidates are all now hard at work trying to win over New Hampshire voters, with Sanders and Buttigieg emerging as the frontrunners. Yes, indeed, there’s a primary on TUESDAY, which will hopefully go a bit smoother than Iowa, but no promises.