Aftermath of Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2020

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After the Democratic Iowa caucuses were held on February 3, 2020, the Iowa Democratic Party delayed releasing the caucus results due to inconsistencies and reporting issues

Results were released in batches beginning February 4. With 100 percent of precincts reporting on February 9, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg led Sen. Bernie Sanders by 0.1% of state delegate equivalents, and Sanders topped the final round by 2,568 votes.

Following a partial recanvass and recount, the Iowa Democratic Party projected on February 27 that Buttigieg would receive 14 pledged delegates, Sanders 12, Sen. Elizabeth Warren 8, former Vice President Joe Biden 6, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar 1.

The state party's communications director, Mandy McClure, said in a statement the morning after the caucuses, "We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."

One reason for the delayed results was the mobile application used by the Iowa Democratic Party to tally and report the caucus vote from each precinct, which did not function properly on caucus night.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned on February 12, nine days after the caucus. He said in his resignation letter, "The fact is that Democrats deserved better than what happened on caucus night. As chair of this party, I am deeply sorry for what happened and bear the responsibility for any failures on behalf of the Iowa Democratic Party."

This page covers the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, including the following components:

• Timeline of events;
• Campaign responses to the delayed results;
• Speeches from candidates in Iowa on caucus night;
• Overview of the application used during the caucus; and
• Election results.

Timeline

• February 25-27, 2020: A partial recount was conducted. The Iowa Democratic Party announced that Buttigieg led Sanders in state delegate equivalents by .04%.
• February 21, 2020: The Iowa Democratic Party announced it had partially accepted the recount requests from Buttigieg and Sanders. Twenty-three precincts were selected for the recount.
• February 16-18, 2020: A partial recanvass of more than 100 caucus precincts was conducted. The Iowa Democratic Party found that Buttigieg's state delegate equivalent lead decreased to .004 percentage points. The Sanders campaign said it would request a recount.
• February 12, 2020: Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned. He said in his resignation letter, "The fact is that Democrats deserved better than what happened on caucus night. As chair of this party, I am deeply sorry for what happened and bear the responsibility for any failures on behalf of the Iowa Democratic Party."
• February 10, 2020: Bernie Sanders requested a partial recanvass of the results in 25 precincts and three satellite caucuses. Pete Buttigieg also requested a partial recanvass, saying it would result in a net increase of 14 state delegate equivalents for him.
• February 9, 2020: The Iowa Democratic Party projected Pete Buttigieg would receive 14 pledged delegates, Bernie Sanders 12, Elizabeth Warren 8, Joe Biden 6, and Amy Klobuchar 1.
• February 7, 2020: The Iowa Democratic Party Recanvass/Recount Committee voted unanimously to extend the deadline for candidates to request a recanvass or recount from Feb. 7 at noon CT to Feb. 10 at noon CT
• February 6, 2020
  • The Bernie Sanders campaign declared victory and submitted a list of discrepancies in the state delegate equivalent calculations. Senior adviser Jeff Weaver said, "We also feel confident that the discrepancies we’re providing tonight, in addition to those widely identified in the national media, mean that the SDE count will never be known with any kind of certainty. Given the rules changes we fought for that required the release of the popular vote count, SDEs are now an antiquated and meaningless metric for deciding the winner of the Iowa caucus."
  • The Associated Press (AP) announced it was unable to call a winner. "Because of a tight margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders and the irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point," said AP executive editor Sally Buzbee.
  • Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called for a recanvass of the Iowa results. He tweeted, "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, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass."
  • The Iowa Democratic Party released results from 97% of precincts.
• February 5, 2020: The Iowa Democratic Party released results from 86% of precincts.
• February 4, 2020
  • 5 p.m. ET: The Iowa Democratic Party released results from 62% of the state’s 1,765 precincts.
  • 12:30 p.m. ET: Nevada Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy II announced that Nevada would not use the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus.
  • 1:30 a.m. ET: The Sanders campaign released its internal vote count of nearly 40 percent of precincts, which showed Sanders leading with 29.7 percent of the vote.

• February 3, 2020
  • 11:45 p.m. ET: The Iowa Democratic Party made another statement, saying the delay was a reporting issue and not the result of a hack or intrusion.
  • 11:20 p.m. ET: Candidates began to make caucus night speeches in Iowa.
  • 11 p.m. ET: The Iowa Democratic Party met with campaign representatives to discuss the issues.
  • 10:45 p.m. ET: The Iowa Democratic Party reported the delay was due to quality checks and reporting on three data sets for the first time.
  • 8 p.m. ET: Iowa caucuses began.

Campaign responses to delayed results

• Dana Remus, general counsel to Joe Biden: "We appreciate that you plan to brief the campaigns momentarily on these issues, and we plan to participate. However, we believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released. We look forward to hearing from you promptly."

• Deval Patrick: "One candidate is calling the results into question because he apparently didn’t do well. Another is declaring victory without any votes being confirmed. The way to beat Donald Trump isn’t to act like Donald Trump. Our party and our country deserve better."

• Tulsi Gabbard: "Thousands of people turned out to cast the first votes of this presidential primary in the Iowa Caucuses last night. Unfortunately, the voices of the people of Iowa have yet to be heard as the vote count continues, leaving voters frustrated and without the transparency and integrity in this process that they expect and deserve."

• The Bernie Sanders campaign released its internal data from 40 percent of precincts early February 4, 2020. Senior adviser Jeff Weaver said, "We recognize that this does not replace the full data from the Iowa Democratic Party, but we believe firmly that our supporters worked too hard for too long to have the results of that work delayed."

• Roger Lau, campaign manager for Elizabeth Warren: "Every second that passes undermines the process a little bit."

Speeches from candidates

Presidential candidates typically give speeches to celebrate a victory, show momentum in the race, or highlight overperformance in the Iowa caucuses. Even without election results available, candidates delivered speeches about the election and their standing. The following section includes quotes from speeches given in Iowa on February 3, 2020:

• Joe Biden said, "Looks like it’s going to be a long night, but I’m feeling good. ... The Iowa Democratic Party is working to this result—get them straight—and I want to make sure they are very careful in their deliberations. From our indications, it's going to be close. We're going to walk out of here with our share of delegates. We don't know exactly what it is yet, but we feel good about where we are. So, it's on to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and well-beyond. We're in this for the long haul."

• Pete Buttigieg said, "Tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality. So we don’t know all of the results, but we know that by the time it is all said and done, Iowa you have shocked the nation. By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

• Amy Klobuchar said, "You probably heard we don't know the results, but I did not want to let another minute go by without thanking all of you. We know there's delays, but we know one thing: we are punching above our weight. ... You know we have beaten the odds every step of the way."

• Elizabeth Warren said, "It is too close to call, so I'm just going to tell you what I do know. ... This race started right here in Iowa, but from tomorrow it will run from ocean to ocean, east to New Hampshire and then west to Nevada and then down to South Carolina."

• Bernie Sanders said, "Let me begin by stating that I have a strong feeling that at some point the results will be announced. And when those results are announced, I have a good feeling we're going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa."

• Andrew Yang said, "I got to say, I’m a numbers guy. We’re still waiting on numbers from tonight. We’re all looking around and being like, 'What’s the math? What’s the math?' And this is one of those situations where we can essentially just throw some algebra letters up on the wall and being like, 'I guess we’ll project onto these new letters for now what the numbers are going to be.' But the math that I care most about is the fact that this movement has become something that has already shocked the political world, and it’s going to keep on going from here. It’s going to keep on growing from here."

Application developed by Shadow Inc.

During the Iowa caucuses, precinct chiefs were supposed to use a mobile application to tally and report the caucus vote from each precinct to the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP). The application was developed by Shadow Inc. over the previous two months.

According to The New York Times, precinct chairs were having difficulty downloading and using the application. These issues were initially attributed to user error, including poor cellphone service or lack of familiarity with the application.

On February 4, 2020, IDP Chairman Troy Price said in a statement, "As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound. While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed." The party turned to paper documentation to verify results.

On the same day, Nevada Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy II announced that the state party would not use the same app or vendor in its caucus as Iowa Democrats did. "We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward," McCurdy said.

See also

• Presidential candidates, 2020
• Democratic presidential nomination, 2020
• Republican presidential nomination, 2020
• Presidential election by state, 2020

Footnotes

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