Buttigieg Wins Iowa Again
Hopefully, the final tally for a contest that shouldn't exist.
The final Iowa Caucus results are finally final: Pete Buttigieg has won (still).
This evening, the Iowa Democratic Party released the results of the recount requested by Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns for 23 precincts. They reported that 19 results at the county delegate level were changed, but overall, it only slightly changed things in favor of Buttigieg, who already had an extremely narrow lead. Those changes can be viewed here.
The final state delegate equivalent totals have Buttigieg at 562.954 and Sanders at 562.021. Compared to the most recent numbers following the recanvass, it appears that both candidates lost a small fraction of SDEs. Buttigieg was then at 563.207 and Sanders at 563.127.
That changes Buttigieg’s initial 0.003% victory after the recanvass to a commanding 0.04% win now.
This means that Buttigieg will maintain a national delegate lead of two in Iowa (14 to Sanders’ 12), with the statewide win netting him a delegate
The AP, meanwhile, is tired of it:
The Associated Press has reviewed the updated results and will not call a winner, given remaining concerns about whether the results as reported by the party are fully accurate. The Feb. 3 caucuses were beset by technical glitches that led to a delay in reporting the results, inconsistencies in the numbers and no clear winner.
That’s rather a weird news judgment. While “winning” is irrelevant, given that all that really matters is the number of delegates awarded, every indication is that Buttigieg got more votes than any other candidate. Every close election has glitches that make absolutely certainly impossible.
Still, one hopes that this fiasco will be the death knell for the Iowa Caucuses and, indeed, the caucus system in general. It’s just a lousy way to select a Presidential nominee for the country.
Pete repeats…