Nail-biter: Sanders and Buttigieg neck-and-neck in Iowa with 97% of precincts reporting
The Iowa Democratic caucuses are coming down to a photo finish as only one-tenth of a percentage point separates Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders with 97% of precincts reported. The former South Bend, Indiana mayor holds 26.2% of state delegate equivalents as of 12:50 a.m. EST on Thursday, the traditional unit to measure a winner that translates to Democratic National Convention nominating delegates, while the Vermont senator has 26.1%. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden remain in third and fourth place with 18.2% and 15.8% of state delegate equivalents, respectively.
Buttigieg, 38, declared victory early on Monday night based on his campaign's internal figures, peeving his rivals. The first wave of results showed Buttigieg 2 points ahead of the Vermont senator, but Sanders, 78, declared his own victory on Tuesday by pointing to his lead in the popular vote. Most recent results show that Sanders has support from 44,753 caucus-goers on final alignment, a 2,518-vote lead on Buttigieg's 42,235.
The jump for Sanders in the most results reported comes from "satellite" caucuses, sites where caucus-goers could vote earlier in the day on Monday and across the country, meant to accommodate shift workers and people unable to attend an hours-long process at a traditional caucus site at 7 p.m. Central Time on Feb. 3. The close call indicates that Sanders organized the satellite caucuses while his rivals did not.
Results were expected on Monday night but were delayed due to an app that the Iowa Democratic Party used to report results was found to have coding glitches, causing the party to manually verify results in each precinct.
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