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Live coverage of the Iowa caucuses: First votes of the 2020 presidential election

The first votes in the 2020 presidential election race were cast today, but the process used to count them quickly descended into farce.

Sam ClenchSam Clench
@SamClench
less than 2 min read
February 4, 2020 - 12:15PM
US Election 2020: Iowa caucus chaos

After almost a year of build-up and relentless campaigning, the first votes in the 2020 presidential election race were cast today - but the process used to count them descended into an "unbelievable" farce.

The Iowa caucuses were the first chance for Democratic voters to officially have their say on who they wanted to represent them as their party's nominee against Donald Trump at the general election in November. Other caucuses and primaries in America's 49 other states will follow in the coming months.

The results in Iowa usually set the tone for the rest of the primaries and start to determine which of the leading candidates are most viable.

This time though, nothing went as planned. Technical problems and confusion over the accuracy of the vote count caused a huge delay in reporting results, and as evening gradually turned to late night and early morning, no official results were confirmed.

The Iowa Democratic Party now reportedly hopes to have the results "some time on Tuesday", which is tomorrow, Australian time.

The bungled process has been derided as a "train wreck" by Donald Trump's re-election campaign, a "total mess" by one former Democratic candidate, "unbelievable" by one of the party's current contenders, and "ridiculous" by political journalists.

Read on for a breakdown of all the news as it unfolded.

Updates

Two campaigns suggest they've won

Two of the Democratic campaigns – those representing Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg – have released internal figures suggesting their candidate has won the Iowa caucuses.

There is no way to verify their claims, because as I have repeated ad nauseum for the last – what, five-and-a-half hours? – we have practically no actual results, and the Sanders and Buttigieg campaigns are not exactly impartial sources of information.

From what we can tell, Mr Sanders and Mr Buttigieg both performed well, and either of them might have won.

The argument will have to be settled tomorrow, when the Democratic Party finally manages to publish the official numbers.

In the meantime, we will tie off the blog here. Come back tomorrow, when we will hopefully be able to declare a winner.

'He got robbed': Backlash starts

So, all the candidates have spoken, and it seems increasingly unlikely we will see official results from Iowa today. Democratic officials are reportedly hoping to have them "sometime on Tuesday" – as in tomorrow our time.

In the absence of any numbers, the commentary has well and truly started.

CNN panellist Van Jones said he felt one candidate in particular, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, was "robbed" of the buzz he would have earned from a strong performance in Iowa.

Entrance polls, very early results and anecdotal evidence all suggested Mr Buttigieg had finished near the top of the pack, despite being the youngest candidate and having little experience.

"I think Pete got robbed tonight," Jones said.

"I think it was history tonight. It's history because you have a gay man who did the impossible – if he's number one, if he's number two, that's a big deal.

"He deserved for the numbers to be running below him while he was doing that speech, and he got robbed of that. I think it's terrible.

"We had a gay American get that close to either first or second, and it's important."

Barack Obama's former strategist David Axelrod said he felt more sorry for the public.

"How about the people of Iowa? How about the public that was looking for this process to begin, and now this cloud of doubt hangs over this whole process?" he asked.

Former candidate Julian Castro, who dropped out of the race a few months ago, labelled the whole thing "a total mess".

And that pretty much sums it up. Everyone is very bummed out – apart from the Trump campaign, which saw the President run up record numbers in the Republican caucuses, and got to denounce the Democratic process as "sloppiest train wreck in history".

Buttigieg all but claims victory

The last of the leading candidates, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, has finally spoken.

While his rivals all very strongly implied they had done well in Iowa, Mr Buttigieg seemed to go further, all but claiming victory.

"So we don't know all the results. But, we know, by the time it's all said and done, Iowa you have shocked the nation," he said.

"Because, by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious."

Now would be a good time to reiterate that, officially, there are hardly any indications at all, one way or the other. Mr Buttigieg presumably likes the look of his campaign's internal data.

He talked about expanding the coalition of Democratic voters, including to those he called "future former Republicans".

"There were sceptics. An awful lot of sceptics. Who said, 'Not now. Not this time. All this talk of bridging divides is too naive, too risky.' So tonight, I say with a heartful of gratitude, Iowa you have proved those sceptics wrong," he said.

"We are defined not by who we voted for in the past, but by what we vote for in the future," he added, in a direct pitch to Trump voters from 2016.

He tied that into a broader pitch on electability.

"We have exactly one shot to defeat Donald Trump. And we're not going to do it by overreaching, we're not going to do it by division. This is our only shot to galvanise an American majority to win," he said.

"Make no mistake. Ours is the campaign that will defeat this President."

The biggest cheer from the crowd came when Mr Buttigieg – the first openly gay presidential candidate in US history – thanked his husband, Chasten.

Biden rips into the party

Joe Biden's campaign has written a scathing letter to the Iowa Democratic Party.

"The app that was intended to relay caucus results to the party failed, the party's back-up telephone reporting system likewise has failed," Mr Biden's general counsel Dana Remus says.

"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 can assume any candidates who end up not doing so well will call the integrity of the results into question, given all this chaos.

Trump campaign mocks 'train wreck'

It has been four hours – four hours! – since the Iowa caucuses started, and we still have practically no results.

Donald Trump's election campaign has pounced on the debacle.

"Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?" said campaign manager Brad Parscale.

"Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well run Republican Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent."

Bernie Sanders addresses crowd

Senator Bernie Sanders was next up, and he too essentially delivered a victory speech.

"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 are going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa," he told a very enthusiastic group of supporters.

"The message Iowa has sent to the nation is that we want a government that represents all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors and the 1 per cent."

Mr Sanders quickly turned his attention to Donald Trump.

"Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history," he said.

"No matter what our political views may be, the people of America understand we cannot continue to have a President who is a pathological liar, who is corrupt, who does not understand our Constitution, and is trying to divide our people up.

"All of that hatred, all of that divisiveness is going to end when, together, we are in the White House."

Biden, Warren talk over each other

Former vice president Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren came out to speak at their respective events at the same time, adding to the general vibe of farce.

"Folks, it looks like it's going to be a long night, but I'm feeling good," Mr Biden told his supporters.

"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."

He framed the general election against Donald Trump as a matter of "character".

"Four more years of Donald Trump will alter the character of this nation," he said.

"We need a president is not only willing to fight, but is willing to heal this country.

"That is exactly what I plan on doing."

Meanwhile, Ms Warren thanked her supporters and reiterated her campaign message built on "big" ideas.

"Americans do big things. That's who we are. We don't settle, we don't back down, we meet big problems with even bigger solutions," she said.

"I'm here tonight because I believe that big dreams are still possible in America."

These all sound like victory speeches, don't they? Certainly, no one is obliged to deliver a concession speech when he have barely any results.

Update from the Democratic Party

We just got a new statement from the Iowa Democratic Party, explaining the delay.

"We found inconsistencies with the reporting of three sets of results," the party said.

The three sets in question are:

+ A popular vote total from the first round of voting;

+ Another popular vote total from the final round;

+ A total of state delegate equivalents, which is the measure used to decide who actually wins Iowa.

"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 and to ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in what we report," the statement continued.

"This is simply a reporting issue.

"The underlying paper and data trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results."

Yikes.

'It's unbelievable': Klobuchar speaks

One of the candidates has finally had enough of waiting, and decided to address her supporters.

Senator Amy Klobuchar told them she was feeling "great" about Iowa, despite the lack of results, and would "some way, somehow" get on a plane to New Hampshire before the end of the night.

"It's unbelievable, but you've probably heard we don't know the results," Ms Klobuchar told a cheering crowd.

"We know there are delays, but we know one thing – we are punching above our weight.

"You know we have beaten the odds every step of the way. We have done it on the merits, we have done it with ideas and we have done it with hard work.

"We know in our hearts that in a democracy, it is not about the loudest voice or the biggest bank account.

"We know that our party can't win big by trying to out-divide the divider in chief. We know that we win by bringing people together."

She described the election as a "decency check".

"The heart of America is so much bigger than the heart of this guy in the White House," said Ms Klobuchar.

The results we do have – from 33 precincts out of 1765 – show Ms Klobuchar in fourth place, with 12 per cent of the vote.

'They hung up on me'

Hoooo boy.

CNN just spoke to Shawn Sebastian, one of the precinct leaders, who said he had been on hold for over an hour with the Iowa Democratic Party, trying to report his results.

"The app, by all accounts, just doesn't work. So we've been recommended to call into the hotline, but the hotline has not been responsive," he said.

About 40-seconds into his conversation with CNN host Wolf Blitzer, the Democratic Party suddenly took Mr Sebastian off hold. But amid the crosstalk, as he attempted to have two phone conversations at once, the party hung up on him.

"They hung up on me. They just hung up on me. I've got to get back on hold," Mr Sebastian said, awkwardly cutting the interview short.

That is some very, very unlucky timing.

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