The only thing clear from all this incredibly garbled "analysis" is that it really doesn't matter whether Buttigieg or Sanders is eventually declared the winner. Each one represents a different, sizable portion of Democratic primary voters. Both appear to have significantly outpaced their respective moderate (Biden, Klobuchar) and leftist (Warren) rivals. So let's rewrite the headline: Buttigieg won! Sanders won! And now it's on to the even more irrelevant state of New Hampshire.
17
Why is this so hard? Simple, if two candidates have same national delegates allocated (because that is what really counts), then tie breaker goes to whoever wins the popular vote. Sheesh.
19
Don’t like the comically ridiculous rules? Change them for 2024. Campaigns based 2020 strategies on the current ones. Further, the delegate equivalent count has always been used to determine the “winner”.
2
POPULAR VOTE---period. The only real way to decide.
15
Why is it taking so long to report on the remaining 3%?
5
What ever happened to one person, one vote?
14
Every tool for measurements has its own precision. One can bot measure difference between two objects if this difference smaller than precision of the tool. Elections are no exception! If the difference between votes for two politicians is too small it just could not be measured because there always some room for error (Gore Bush debacle is an excellent illustration) In this case the room for error is relatively bigger because underlying formula is rather complicated...
so Bernie has more votes and he should be declared Conner...
7
Honestly, bragging rights for IOWA win doesn't really count for much. However, consider this, with Sander's supposed domination, he is still almost even with Buttgieg who has no National recognition. If he had lost, he would discard this caucus, if he wins, he will crow about it. Consider this, is it worth to battle for something that will be forgotten as soon as Super Tuesday hits.
Sander surrogates are trying to build a wall that admonishes any sign that Sanders is not the leading candidate for all Democrats (I mean all Democrats and Independents and possibly anti Trump Republicans - not only current Sander supporters).
Primaries are here to weed out the Steyers and Yangs out there. In the end, the more Sander surrogates dismiss the other candidates, the more their voters will choose another path or coalesce either to Warren or Biden. Sanders is no longer going against Hillary, he is going against at least 2-3 other candidates.
2
The only reason there is such a focus on "delegate equivalencies" is because it is the only way Buttigieg can claim a victory.
And even this claim is based upon not fairly counting the predominately minority voters who voted in the satellite stations because the Monday night timing of the caucus conflicted with their work schedules.
Sanders beat Buttigieg by 6000 votes on the first alignment and 2500 votes on the second alignment. It was not even close.
The convoluted way the votes were counted still allows Buttigieg to tie Sanders in the number of delegates they receive. Very similar to the Electoral College.
The only reason there is a focus on delegate equivalents is because it covers up the clear victory of Sanders in Iowa.
31
Leave the DNC rule out of it, let the IDP rules prevail. We are a state based democracy and the DNC is not the federal government, they should not have jurisdiction over a local/state election results.
16
According to Buttigieg, he's already won, right? We knew that at 0% reported. No need to embrace pesky things like math.
But yes, let's wrap 3% of the SDEs in a catchy headline.
Let's also ignore the failed app, tested in production, built by former Clinton staffers, paid for in part by Buttigieg's campaign; the same campaign that had him declaring himself the winner after 0 precincts had been reported. Let's also not forget about the remaining 3% that hasn't been reported and how the precincts that have been reported over the last few days favored the PR momentum of a singular candidate. And if we want to go there and talk about "beneficiaries" there is already doubt cast on several of the decisions by coin-flip.
In a sea of things benefiting Buttigieg, you'll have to forgive those of us that don't embrace "Nobody knows how much it benefits Sanders, but it does."
We get it. The establishment is filling its collective diapers right now, but the Iowa debacle as a whole is not helping in the fight to remove a certain person from office. We need to keep our eyes on the prize.
41
@Bryce Bernie has also claimed victory.
4
Doesn't change anything. Bernie would still win if the rest of the satellite results are released. You're talking about 3 SDE's. Bernie has much more to gain in the unreleased 3%.
18
I've gone through circumstances in my life that involved delving into considerable minutiae. I'm a lawyer, and this has occurred often while processing legal matters. It can become difficult, when in the thick of it, to step back and recognize you're doing little more than endlessly wading through gobbledygook. Sadly, that is my sense of what's gone on here.
Iowa has created an absurdly complex process, one that seems to avoid sensibility at all cost. It would appear the most reasonable conclusion would be to scrap it, right here, right now. You're never going to find the massive number of volunteers that are required for these caucuses who can possibly make heads or tails of this process anyway. Simply put, now that the curtain's been rolled back on what goes on here, which did not occur in prior years, it's doomed.
I am given to understand the only reason Iowa has held on to this preposterous system was to maintain their first-in-the-nation status for the Convention delegate allocation season. But that's not a legitimate purpose for this event, nor does it serve democracy. The best possible answer in that regard would be to allow one person, one vote.
Therefore, if Iowa wants to get out of this in one piece, revert to the first vote that was taken at these caucuses and call it a day. There can be no real reason to call such a conclusion unfair to anyone, because all that chose to attend were given their voice.
And by all means, never revisit the caucus system again.
46
@Bullett I am not a lawyer and I agree completely. I am fairly bright but cannot make heads n'or tails of the satellite caucus rules. I cannot understand the reasoning for caucuses since this is not the way elections happen. Whatever happened to the idea of one person, one vote and that vote mattered whether or not you received a given percentage?
19
@Carol The issue isn't whether or not you're bright. It's more about your ability to deal with the totally preposterous. I saw Steve Kornacki on TV attempting to explain it. He's got a legit expertise in this subject matter. He could barely get through it. I wasn't even convinced he completely understood what was going on with these caucus rules. Anyway, it's not you. It's just a bad system.
11
Iowa should ditch the caucus system and award delegates using a formula tied to ranked voting.
9
Dude could we just run a primary already. Also honestly I can’t believe we care. This will make zero difference to who gets the nomination.
7
This is a detailed explanation, and I commend the author for wading into such drudgery. But I hope that as we all consider this, we stop and ask: why is it this complicated? The fact of the matter is, approximately 6,000 more people (first alignment) or 2,500 people (final alignment) voted for Bernie Sanders than did Pete Buttigieg. Regardless of how the winner has been declared in the past in Iowa, this system of disproportionately assigning delegates based on archaic formulas is anti-democratic. I encourage other readers - who would readily agree that the Electoral College robbed Hillary Clinton of her popular vote victory in 2016 - to recognize the similarities here. Do not let anyone fool you, this is a clear (albeit narrow) victory for Sanders.
68
I somewhat agree but I’m also amused - it’s been the Sanders folks that have in the past defended caucuses when in 2016 he did better in them than in primaries. And how voters align in a caucus, or if they turn out for them, is obviously influenced by the fact that it is NOT a statewide election, and in fact isn’t a straightforward election at all. Which means it’s very iffy to just count bodies and add them up as if it were a statewide primary election.
(I’ve actually seen Bernie people on social media demand Democrats switch to winner take all ranked choice primaries, which is very funny because under such a system Sanders would have been absolutely smashed in 2016 - as would any candidate without pre-existing national networks and name recognition.)
11
people keep saying this but it's not true they still have a caucus after 2016 because of the sanders camp. they keep it because moving to a primary means they have to go after NH.
7
@Ashley Nope. All Iowa has to do is pass a law that says their primary is one week before any other state's primary, with the date determined by other states. New Hampshire has no jurisdiction over Iowa.
3
Since 500+ or 1000+ people can show up to a single regular caucus site and the number of delegates still can’t exceed 9, the correct answer seems pretty straightforward = max of 9
1
There Is No Coup In Iowa
1
Seems like adopting the rules from the IDSP would work to discount the voices of Iowa’s people of color, who accounted for large portions of the attendance at these satellite caucuses and overwhelmingly backed Bernie.
Not surprising then that Pete is petitioning to do just that.
30
@ME That's silly. The issue is whether the Iowa Democratic Party sticks to its written rules or not. Not everything is a conspiracy.
12
@ME How do you find racism in this? Adopting the rules that were agreed to before the first-ever satellite caucus, and rules that Bernie agreed to, is the only way to do it.
Changing the rules after the fact invalidates the state's results and opens the party to widespread, and well-deserved, criticism.
3
Can't they just toss a coin like it's done in such close cases? https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1224533900946485250
1
Shouldn’t the IDP be the ultimate arbitrator of its own rules?
8
Crazy suggestion: what if they just declare the person with the most votes the winner? Seeing as they can't even figure out their own rules about this SDE nonsense
60
@Sam Exactly. Victory on anything less than winning the popular vote is not a good look. It should be avoidable within a single state. Of particular note here is the downplaying of Ms Warren's high numbers in high turnout centers.
The caucusing process is an excellent basis for choosing who will be the candidate. But after the local (county) rounds, just count the numbers at each location and then add them up.
7
@Sam Too late for that. maybe for 2024, when they have new rules.
1
@Sam Because the official rules say differently and all of the candidates, including Bernie agreed to the rules. So you want to change the rules after the fact.
4