DES MOINES, Iowa -- With 97% of precincts reporting late Wednesday, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg led Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa's Democratic caucuses by the equivalent of three state delegates out of 2,098 counted, The Associated Press reported.
The results that came out followed a period of caucus chaos. Technical problems marred the process, forcing state officials to apologize and raising questions about Iowa's traditional place atop the presidential primary calendar. The latest results were released early today.
It was too early to call a winner based on the early results from Monday's caucuses, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota were trailing in the tally of state delegate equivalents, according to the data.
Other candidates -- including entrepreneur Andrew Yang, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii -- lagged further behind.
Sanders is a 78-year-old self-described democratic socialist. The 38-year-old Buttigieg will be the first openly gay candidate to earn presidential primary delegates.
"We don't know all of the numbers, but we know this much: A campaign that started a year ago with four staff members, no name recognition, no money, just a big idea -- a campaign that some said should have no business even making this attempt -- has taken its place at the front of this race," Buttigieg said as he campaigned in New Hampshire with his husband looking on.
Biden, the former two-term vice president and longtime senator, was in the second tier of Iowa candidates. Biden's campaign sought to play down the caucus results even before complete figures are released.
"We believe we will emerge with the delegates we need to continue on our path to nomination," said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser.
During a private conference call with campaigns earlier in the day, the chairman of the state party, Troy Price, had declined to answer questions about the timeline -- even whether it would be days or weeks.
The leading candidates pressed on in New Hampshire, which votes Tuesday. Meanwhile, billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor, said he would double his already sizable advertising campaign and expand his staff focused on a series of delegate-rich states voting next month.
Iowa marked the first contest in a primary season that will span all 50 states and several U.S. territories, ending at the party's national convention in July.
Before he left Iowa late Monday, Bernie Sanders said, "Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump."
For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party this year reported three sets of results: a tally of caucusgoers' initial candidate preference, vote totals from the "final alignment" after supporters of lower-ranking candidates were able to make a second choice, and the total number of state delegate equivalents each candidate received.
The Associated Press will declare a winner based on the number of state delegates each candidate wins, which has been the traditional standard.
The state party told campaigns Tuesday that the problem was a result of a "coding issue in the reporting system" that it said had since been fixed. It said it had verified the accuracy of the collected data and that the problem was not a result of "a hack or an intrusion."
The final precincts reporting results were scattered throughout the state, in 87 of Iowa's 99 counties. Many of them were in Polk County, the state's largest, where just two-thirds of the 177 precincts are accounted for.
Sean Bagniewski, the Democratic chairman in Polk County, said he had delivered all of his county's precinct-level results to the state party headquarters by 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and had no explanation for why they had not yet been counted.
Bagniewski said state party officials had not sought additional information from him about the Polk County data.
Some tally sheets were making their way to party headquarters in Des Moines through the mail, which contributed to the delay.
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Thomas Beaumont and Alexandra Jaffe of The Associated Press and by Giovanni Russonello of The New York Times.
A Section on 02/06/2020