Update 2/6 1:30 a.m. ET:
On Tuesday evening we posed the question ‘has Mayor Pete won the Iowa caucuses?’ Thirty hours later, we still don’t have a conclusive answer. When 62 percent of the vote was reported, it looked like Buttigieg had a lead of 1.7 points over Bernie Sanders in the delegate count, with Bernie topping the overall vote share in both the first and final counts. Now, with 97 percent of the vote in, Pete’s lead has been slashed to 0.1 percent. As it stands, Buttigieg has 550 in the state delegate equivalents to Bernie’s 546.
The discrepancy between where the delegate count is now and where it was on Tuesday won’t do much to quell the ‘Mayor Cheat’ accusations being thrown around by the Bernie camp.
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In one of the weirdest days in the history of American democracy, Mayor Pete Buttigieg looks to have pulled off an extraordinary result in the Iowa caucuses.
The polls show Buttigieg level with Bernie Sanders, or slightly ahead, with 62 percent of precincts having reported.
The result will be fiercely contested and conspiracy theorists are already going wild. Bernie Sanders’s campaign internal data suggested he was leading by a significant margin, and they will see another ‘establishment coup’ against their man.
Mayor Pete caused was widely mocked last night for making a victory speech after none of the results had been reported. Perhaps he knew something the rest of the world didn’t.
Suspicions have raged all day after the announcement of the results was delayed by over 18 hours, due to issues with an app, Shadow, used in reporting for the first time. The founder of the app’s husband is a Buttigieg adviser, and the mayor’s campaign have been a client of Acronym, who produced Shadow.
The result is by no means confirmed. Bernie Sanders appears to have won the popular vote which will give his supporters hope that the remaining precincts will push him over the top in delegate equivalents
