After nearly a week of what proved to one of the more embarrassing primary debacles in recent history, the Iowa Democratic Party has finally released what it says is are official, truly final results and has awarded its delegates accordingly. The winner, by an extremely narrow margin, was South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who edged out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and has now officially gained a 2-delegate lead.
Iowa&#8217;s impact in terms of delegates on the Democratic primary is extremely small, the state sending only 41 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, which ultimately receives nearly 4,000. However, as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nate-silver-why-democrats-iowa-debacle-mightve-just-screwed-up-entire-nomination-process">explained</a> by analyst Nate Silver, the state&#8217;s caucuses have a disproportionate impact on the race, as it goes a long way to helping candidates build momentum, as is the case for both Buttigieg and Sanders. Longtime frontrunner Joe Biden&#8217;s campaign, on the other hand, has been badly damaged after the former vice president came in a distant fourth.
As reported by <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-primary-elections/delegate-count?icid=election_results">NBC News</a> Sunday, the Iowa Democratic Party is now officially awarding Buttigieg 14 of its 41 delegates and Sanders 12. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who came in third, is getting 8 delegates. Biden is receiving 6 delegates for his surprisingly low fourth place finish. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) managed to get one delegate, while no other candidates received a single delegate.
While the Iowa Democratic Party says it now feels confident in the proportioning of the votes, many are still viewing the results with skepticism, including NBC, which, like the Associated Press last Thursday, announced that the network &#8220;is not calling a winner in the first-in-the-nation contest, and the NBC News Decision Desk is not making any independent delegate allocations at this time.&#8221;
The Associated Press announced last Thursday that, as a result of &#8220;irregularities,&#8221; it was &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ap-declares-no-official-democrat-winner-in-iowa-trump-has-advice-on-who-to-blame">unable to declare a winner in Iowa</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;Following the Iowa Democratic Party’s release of new results late Thursday night, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted. That is a margin of 0.09 percentage points,&#8221; AP reported. &#8220;However, there is evidence the party has not accurately tabulated some of its results, including those released late Thursday that the party reported as complete. The AP’s tabulation of the party’s results are at 99% of precincts reporting, with data missing from one of 1,765 precincts, among other issues.&#8221;
On Thursday, DNC Chairman Tom Perez publicly shamed the Iowa Democratic Party, demanding that it begin a complete recount and recalculation of the vote.
&#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; Perez tweeted Thursday. &#8220;In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
&mdash; Tom Perez (@TomPerez) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225468833458245632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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While the Iowa Democratic Party has declared Buttigieg the winner, Sanders appears to have gained the most from his strong performance in the state, appearing to overtake Biden as the party&#8217;s true frontrunner. The Biden campaign, meanwhile, has been scrambling to reset, shaking up the leadership and redirecting campaign funds in a &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/post-iowa-meltdown-biden-goes-missing-campaign-plans-last-ditch-effort-to-save-candidacy">last-ditch effort</a>&#8221; to save his candidacy, as The Washington Post put it Friday.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-makes-series-of-election-predictions-for-democrats-ocasio-cortez-schumer-nadler">Trump Makes Series Of Election Predictions For Democrats: Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, Nadler</a>

Democratic Candidates

UPDATE: The Final Official Iowa Democrat Delegate Count, And What It Means

Amy Klobuchar

Bernie Sanders

Elizabeth Warren

Iowa

Joe Biden

Pete Buttigieg

The days-long Democratic debacle in Iowa has forced the Associated Press to throw in the towel Thursday and declare no official winner in what was likely the state&#8217;s last first-in-the-nation caucuses. In some of his trademark presidential trolling, a newly &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-trump-takes-aim-at-romney-pelosi-at-national-prayer-breakfast">ACQUITTED</a>&#8221; Trump offered some trolling advice for the Democrats about who to blame.
&#8220;The Associated Press is unable to declare a winner of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses because of irregularities in this year&#8217;s process and the tight margin between Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders,&#8221; AP announced on social media Thursday.
&#8220;Following the Iowa Democratic Party’s release of new results late Thursday night, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted. That is a margin of 0.09 percentage points,&#8221; <a href="https://apnews.com/4f9044fe46f551d397d48dd8ca3d58db?utm_medium=AP_Politics&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter">AP</a> explained in its &#8220;no winner&#8221;-announcing report. &#8220;However, there is evidence the party has not accurately tabulated some of its results, including those released late Thursday that the party reported as complete. The AP’s tabulation of the party’s results are at 99% of precincts reporting, with data missing from one of 1,765 precincts, among other issues.&#8221;
And that&#8217;s not all, AP explains. The Democratic National Committee has now ordered Iowa to recanvass the results, requiring them to recount and recalculate all the votes. Whether state Democratic officials choose to do so remains to be seen.
As a result, AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Sally Buzbee issued a statement Thursday announcing the it is simply &#8220;not possible&#8221; to determine a Democratic winner in Iowa. &#8220;The Associated Press calls a race when there is a clear indication of a winner. Because of a tight margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders and the irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point,&#8221; said Buzbee.
In response, Trump trollingly tweeted, &#8220;I think they should blame RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA again!&#8221;
&#8220;If they can’t count votes properly, how are they going to run U.S. HealthCare?&#8221; he added.
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I think they should blame RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA again! If they can’t count votes properly, how are they going to run U.S. HealthCare? <a href="https://t.co/JsNB8jvKoo">https://t.co/JsNB8jvKoo</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1225766149473947651?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2020</a></blockquote>
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As AP notes, DNC Chairman Tom Perez issued a blistering statement on Thursday ordering the Iowa Democratic Party to clean up their mess.
&#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; a frustrated Perez tweeted. &#8220;In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
&mdash; Tom Perez (@TomPerez) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225468833458245632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Perez&#8217;s demand followed a party-embarrassing New York Times analysis finding that &#8220;more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.&#8221;
&#8220;In some cases, vote tallies do not add up,&#8221; the Times reported on Thursday. &#8220;In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-poll-buttigieg-rockets-to-near-tie-with-sanders-in-new-hampshire-biden-plummets">NEW POLL: Buttigieg Rockets To Near-Tie With Sanders In New Hampshire; Biden Plummets</a>

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-SOTU

AP Declares No Official Democrat Winner In Iowa; Trump Has Advice On Who To Blame

Associated Press

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Just when the Iowa caucus disaster could not get any more disastrous, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/4f9044fe46f551d397d48dd8ca3d58db">has now announced</a> it is unable to declare a winner from Monday night.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is unable to declare a winner in Iowa’s 2020 Democratic caucuses
&mdash; Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) <a href="https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP/status/1225561092287553538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;With 97% of precincts reporting from Monday’s caucuses, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted,&#8221; reported the AP on Thursday. &#8220;That is a margin of 0.14 percentage points.&#8221;
&#8220;Further, the party has yet to report results from some satellite caucus sites, from which there are still an unknown number of state delegate equivalents to be won,&#8221; the report later added. &#8220;The AP will continue to report and review the results from the Iowa Democratic Party as it completes its tabulation, as well as the results of any potential recanvass or recount.&#8221;
Sally Buzbee, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, said that there can be no clear indication of a winner as Sanders and Buttigieg stand so neck-in-neck.
“The Associated Press calls a race when there is a clear indication of a winner. Because of a tight margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders and the irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point,” said Buzbee.
The Associated Press made its determination following Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez asking the Iowa Democratic Party to recanvas the state, which simply means a review of &#8220;the worksheets used by each caucus site&#8221; to determine if the votes were counted correctly, according to The Hill. A recanvas is not a recount.
“Enough is enough,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-dnc-chairman-tom-perez-calls-for-immediate-recanvassing-in-iowa-caucuses">Perez said</a>. “In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”
Though Tom Perez has demanded a recanvas, that does not necessarily mean the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) will comply. In a statement responding to Perez, the IDP stated that a recanvas would only be conducted if a candidate requested it.
&#8220;An analysis of the results that have been released so far shows a number of errors and inconsistencies, some of which appear to contradict the Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus rules,&#8221; reports The Hill.  &#8220;One example in Indianola’s second precinct in Warren County, first identified by The New York Times, shows Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) picking up support on the final caucus alignment even though neither was recorded as viable in the first alignment — an apparent violation of caucus rules.&#8221;
&#8220;In the same precinct, two other candidates, Tom Steyer and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, lost votes in the final alignment, even though both were apparently viable in the first alignment,&#8221; it continued.
Despite the Associated Press not declaring a victor in the Iowa caucus, Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT)<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/02/06/iowa-caucus-results-bernie-sanders-declares-decisive-victory/4680676002/"> said in a press conference on Thursday</a> that he achieved a &#8220;decisive victory&#8221; while citing the party&#8217;s total &#8220;screw up&#8221; of the process.
&#8220;We are holding a press conference that should have occurred three nights ago in Des Moines, but for the inability of the Iowa Democratic Party to count votes in a timely fashion,&#8221; Sanders told reporters. &#8220;That screw-up has been extremely unfair to the people of Iowa, it has been unfair to all of the candidates and all of their supporters. So what I want to do, three days late, is thank the people of Iowa for the very strong victory they gave us Monday night.&#8221;

Bernie

TOTAL DISASTER: Associated Press ‘Unable To Declare A Winner’ In Iowa Caucus

The New York Times reported Thursday that the Iowa caucus was &#8220;riddled with errors&#8221; and that the Iowa Democrats presided over a &#8220;systemwide disaster&#8221; that amounted to a complete &#8220;meltdown,&#8221; but Iowa Democrats believe there&#8217;s a better excuse for what happened in their caucus Monday night: sabotage by supporters of President Donald Trump.
The application used in the Iowa Democratic caucuses is now the well-known top culprit in Monday night&#8217;s debacle. Meant to help caucus organizers tabulate, process, and report data, the $60,000 system failed miserably, even though Iowa has just over 1,800 individual precincts, giving the application a minimal amount of data to handle. In many cases, the app didn&#8217;t allow organizers to input data; in others, it botched the tabulation process. Some organizers, it now appears, were never able to log in to the app at all.
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html">The New York Times</a>, though, reported Thursday that, even without the app, &#8220;more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.&#8221;
&#8220;In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts,&#8221; the paper claimed &#8212; and that&#8217;s after the so-called &#8220;quality control checks&#8221; the party put in place Monday night.
The situation is so bad that Democratic National Commitee chairman Tom Perez begged the Iowa Democratic party for a &#8220;complete recanvass&#8221; in a tweet issued Thursday morning.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
&mdash; Tom Perez (@TomPerez) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225468833458245632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; Perez said on social media. &#8220;In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.&#8221;
In a conference call with supporters Wednesday night, though, Iowa Democrats pointed the finger at Trump supporters, not themselves, claiming that the helpline, designed to assist caucus organizers in reporting their results via the app, was overloaded with prank phone calls thanks to a group of internet trolls, hamstringing the whole process.
&#8220;Ken Sagar, a Democratic central committee member in the state, told a conference call Wednesday that on the night of the caucus, Trump backers were calling in to voice their support for the president, Bloomberg reported. Sagar was reportedly one of the people answering the calls,&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-supporters-flood-hotline-for-iowa-precinct-chairs-adding-to-the-chaos-report">reported</a>.
Although only two others substantiated Sagar&#8217;s report, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/clog-lines-iowa-caucus-hotline-posted-online-encouragement-disrupt-results-n1131521">NBC News ran with it as gospel</a>, claiming that a &#8220;clog the lines&#8221; effort, organized by the notorious 4chan, was responsible for the chaos.
&#8220;The phone number to report Iowa caucus results was posted on a fringe internet message board on Monday night along with encouragement to &#8216;clog the lines,'&#8221; NBC News reported, &#8220;an indication that jammed phone lines that left some caucus managers on hold for hours may have in part been due to prank calls.&#8221;
&#8216;An Iowa Democratic Party official said the influx of calls to the reporting hotline included &#8216;supporters of President Trump who called to express their displeasure with the Democratic Party.'&#8221;
Indeed, it does appear that 4chan organized a call-in effort, but it seems, per the posts instigating the effort, that they only came up with the idea after it was clear the application was in meltdown.
&#8220;Uh oh how unfortunate it would be for a bunch of mischief makers to start clogging the lines,&#8221; one user said.
Volunteers also told NBC News that they were able to screen out the prank callers pretty quickly, moving on to more important issues: &#8220;If I picked up the phone and it was clear after the first handful of words that someone was not calling to report the results, I just hung up,” one man in charge of handling help calls told the network.

Iowa caucus trump

Iowa Democrats Blame Trump Supporters For Caucus Night Confusion, Claim App Hotline Sabotage

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez called for an immediate recanvassing in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday after days of mounting concerns surrounding the accuracy of the results.
Perez&#8217;s call came after The New York Times reported on Thursday that the results &#8220;were riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws.&#8221;
&#8220;According to a New York Times analysis, more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses,&#8221; The Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html">reported</a>. &#8220;In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.&#8221;
&#8220;Enough is enough,&#8221; Perez said. &#8220;In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
&mdash; Tom Perez (@TomPerez) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225468833458245632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The state party, in reforms for 2020, introduced an opportunity for campaigns to request a recanvass and, if necessary, a recounct of the results if they are able to show that new figures could alter the allocation of delegates to the national convention in the summer,&#8221; The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-chair-calls-for-recanvas-in-iowa/2020/02/06/0ec4dc4c-4906-11ea-9164-d3154ad8a5cd_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com">reported</a>. &#8220;The state’s rules do not explain how exactly a recanvass differs from a full recount, though both are more significant than a simple precinct review, which involves checking caucus-level anomalies.&#8221;
CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny added: &#8220;The Iowa Democratic Party did not have advance warning that @TomPerez was calling for a recanvass of the Iowa caucus results, two people familiar with the matter tell @CNN . Perez doesn&#8217;t point out that the DNC has been running the show in Iowa for the last 48 hours.&#8221;
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NEW: The Iowa Democratic Party did not have advance warning that <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TomPerez</a> was calling for a recanvass of the Iowa caucus results, two people familiar with the matter tell <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a>. Perez doesn&#39;t point out that the DNC has been running the show in Iowa for the last 48 hours.
&mdash; Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1225472426894647296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Before Perez’s announcement, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders were virtually tied at 26 percent with 97 percent of precincts reporting,&#8221; Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/dnc-chair-calls-for-recanvass-of-iowa-caucuses-111514">reported</a>. Buttigieg led in percentage of state delegate equivalents by just one-tenth of a percentage point, but Sanders led in the popular vote by more than 2,500 votes. The Associated Press said the race was too close to call.&#8221;
Commentators and top surrogates for socialist Bernie Sanders responded by suggesting that the DNC was trying to stop Sanders from winning the state.
Far-left activist Shaun King wrote: &#8220;Let me see if I understand this. 97% of the votes are counted. Bernie surges and is about to take the lead in delegates. @TomPerez calls for something called a &#8216;recanvass.'&#8221;
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Let me see if I understand this. 
97% of the votes are counted. Bernie surges and is about to take the lead in delegates. <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TomPerez</a> calls for something called a &quot;recanvass.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/R9RdiWdgPD">https://t.co/R9RdiWdgPD</a>
&mdash; Shaun King (@shaunking) <a href="https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1225471631071567877?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Current affairs wrote: &#8220;Tom Perez steps in just as the last unreleased results threatened to put Bernie over the top and calls for the whole count to stop and be scrapped and started all over again.&#8221;
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Tom Perez steps in just as the last unreleased results threatened to put Bernie over the top and calls for the whole count to stop and be scrapped and started all over again. <a href="https://t.co/1i92wVsbzU">https://t.co/1i92wVsbzU</a>
&mdash; Current Affairs (@curaffairs) <a href="https://twitter.com/curaffairs/status/1225484944346157061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

US-VOTE-2020-DEMOCRATS-DEBATE

DNC Chairman Tom Perez Calls For Immediate Recanvassing In Iowa Caucuses

Democratic National Committee

Tom Perez

It just continues to get worse and worse for the Iowa Democratic Party — and, by extension, for both the Democratic National Committee and grassroots Democrats across the country alike. The already-infamous app crashing that has resulted in politicos still not knowing the full and final results of Monday night&#8217;s first-in-the-nation caucuses was compounded by the fact, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dhs-acting-secretary-iowa-democratic-party-refused-help-testing-failed-caucus-app">noted</a>, that the Iowa Democratic Party turned down express overtures from the Department of Homeland Security to help with vetting the technology.
As of Thursday morning, The New York Times&#8217; &#8220;live&#8221; caucus <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/04/us/elections/results-iowa-caucus.html?action=click&amp;module=Top%20Stories&amp;pgtype=Homepage">results tabulator</a> showed former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a remarkably narrow lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Buttigieg currently leads Sanders 26.2% to 26.1% in the total statewide popular vote, and by 550 to 547 in terms of state delegate equivalents. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is in third place, with 18.2% and 381 state delegate equivalents, whereas bumbling former Vice President Joe Biden is in fourth place with 15.8% and 331 state delegate equivalents. Overall, then, with 97% of Iowa precincts reporting, Buttigieg leads in 59 of Iowa&#8217;s 99 counties, Sanders leads in 19, and politicos everywhere eagerly anticipate the results of the final 28. Despite his minuscule deficit in statewide popular vote and state delegate equivalents, however, the Times&#8217; current &#8220;live estimate&#8221; of who will ultimately prevail shows Sanders as a narrow favorite over Buttigieg.
In short, this is total chaos and a dumpster fire of catastrophic proportions.
But now, the Times is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html?emc=edit_na_20200206&amp;ref=headline&amp;nl=breaking-news&amp;campaign_id=60&amp;instance_id=0&amp;segment_id=21030&amp;user_id=b715e556383ae49550d07cacec388fa8&amp;regi_id=74074015&amp;fbclid=IwAR1YBbD9XtncQ9h-ewnL6kg3WQsQ6Jf4rekz3cDas72ynCHODBKdenZzTvs">separately reporting</a> that the results finally reported by the Iowa Democratic Party on Wednesday are &#8220;riddled with errors and inconsistencies.&#8221;
&#8220;The results released by the Iowa Democratic Party on Wednesday were riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws,&#8221; the Gray Lady wrote. &#8220;According to a New York Times analysis, more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.&#8221;
&#8220;In some cases, vote tallies do not add up,&#8221; the Times continued. &#8220;In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.&#8221;
&#8220;Some of these inconsistencies may prove to be innocuous, and the irregularities do not indicate an intentional effort to compromise or rig the result,&#8221; the newspaper reported. &#8220;But not all of the errors are minor, and they raise questions about whether the public will ever get a completely precise account of the Iowa results. With Mr. Sanders closing to within 0.1% with 97% of 1,765 precincts reporting, the race could easily grow close enough for even the most minor errors to delay a final projection or raise doubts about a declared winner.&#8221;
This is not exactly the way a political party ostensibly preoccupied with repelling election interference and preserving the integrity of the franchise would prefer that a leading left-wing newspaper cover its first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Separately this week, guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iowa-might-have-screwed-up-the-whole-nomination-process/">weighed in with insights</a> on how &#8220;Iowa might have screwed up the whole nomination process.&#8221;
&#8220;To be &#8230; blunt: The Iowa Democratic Party’s colossal screw-up in reporting results will potentially have direct effects on the outcome of the nomination process,&#8221; Silver wrote. &#8220;The failure to report results will almost certainly help Biden, assuming that indications that he performed poorly in Iowa are correct, as they won’t get nearly as much media coverage. And they’ll hurt whichever candidate wins the state — most likely Sanders or Buttigieg.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s not a good situation for the Democratic Party,&#8221; he concluded. &#8220;And it’s already too late for the damage to be entirely undone, even if Iowa eventually gets its act together.&#8221;

Pete Buttigieg continues to hold lead over Bernie Sanders in Iowa

Iowa Results Reported Wednesday Apparently ‘Riddled With Errors’

2020 Election

Department of Homeland Security

Michael Bloomberg

The Iowa caucus was a disaster for Democrats, or was it?
The caucuses were held Monday night, yet we still don’t know who officially won. South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has held the lead since partial results were released days ago following an alleged error in the reporting app Democrats used to collect results. But Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been closing the gap, and currently sits just 0.2% behind Buttigieg.
The latest Emerson College tracking poll, however, shows Buttigieg has gotten a large bump in support thanks to his surprise success in Iowa. The delay in reporting the results of the Iowa caucuses has led some to speculate that the entire debacle was a calculated move by the Democratic National Committee to let Buttigieg soak up the spotlight ahead of New Hampshire.
After partial results were released Monday night, Buttigieg declared a victory of sorts, telling supporters “an improbable hope became an undeniable reality.”
“We don’t know all the results,” Buttigieg continued. “But we know, by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation, because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”
On Tuesday, Buttigieg only slightly walked back his “victory” comments the night before.
&#8220;We were looking at the internal numbers that we had and beginning to realize that something extraordinary had happened last night,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pete-buttigieg-iowa-caucus-claimed-victory-later-backtracked-2020-2">told MSNBC host Willie Geist</a>. &#8220;Here you have a campaign that was really questioned when we got in for whether we even oughta be here, whether we belonged in this race. And to not only establish that, but to reach the position that we did was a clear victory for our campaign.&#8221;
Emerson’s tracking poll collects data each night. As of Thursday morning, Buttigieg sits in second place among Democratic hopefuls <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-6276.html">with 21%</a> of the vote, while Sanders leads with 31%. But since the Iowa caucus Monday night, Buttigieg has seen a 9-point bump in the poll, <a href="http://emersonpolling.com/2020/02/05/new-hampshire-2020-tracking-poll-night-3-buttigieg-gets-an-iowa-bounce-sanders-maintains-strong-lead/">up from 12%</a> on Monday.
This factoid was pointed out on Twitter, leading journalist Abby Martin to speculate that “A false 48 hour news cycle and cynical DNC manipulation let Pete rob Bernie&#8217;s thunder, a terrible omen of things to come.”
Professor Nick Flor, who teaches programming and other technology classes, <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfessorF/status/1225395624587038720">pointed out</a> that the DNC’s claims of an app issue seemed suspect, considering that if “you have all the data like they claimed, then ‘back-end coding problems’ can be solved with a simple SQL query.”
Buttigieg is also doing better in the WBZ/Boston Globe/Suffolk University tracking poll, Boston’s local CBS affiliate <a href="https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/02/05/new-hampshire-primary-tracking-poll-bernie-sanders-pete-buttigieg-joe-biden/">reported</a>. In that poll, Sanders still leads with 25% of the poll, but Buttigieg takes second place with 19%, “his best yet” in the poll, CBS reported.
The Iowa caucuses don’t really do much for providing candidates with delegates to win the eventual nomination, but because it is the first contest in the primary, it does allow the winner to use their momentum going forward. Buttigieg has capitalized on this even if he hasn’t officially won, while most other candidates simply said something to the effect of not having all the results and moving on to New Hampshire.

Buttigieg Sanders

Buttigieg Gets 9-Point Bump In New Hampshire Poll. Some Say DNC Rigged Iowa To Stop Bernie

New Hampshire

ACRONYM, the left-leaning &#8220;dark money&#8221; group that bankrolled SHADOW, the company that made the now-infamous Iowa caucus app that threw the contest into complete chaos is, unsurprisingly, looking to hire a new chief of staff.
<a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/acronym-seeking-new-chief-of-staff-after-iowa-caucus-debacle/">The Washington Free Beacon</a> reports that ACRONYM posted an <a href="https://www.daybook.com/jobs/oC2kYspDEDn7Dooi7">open position on the Daybook</a> Washington, D.C., jobs website seeking a chief of staff just hours after they were forced to release a statement distancing themselves from SHADOW and the Iowa disaster.
ACRONYM is looking for someone with &#8220;experience implementing and maintaining accountability measures&#8221; that would &#8220;hold managers at all levels accountable for program deliverables and status updates.&#8221;
Whomever filled that position before apparently failed to check back on the nefarious-sounding SHADOW, Inc., which produced the Iowa Democratic caucus app for just $60,000, promising to collect, process, and tabulate the data from Iowa&#8217;s 1,800 precincts faster and more efficiently than hand counting caucus results. The app was never tested, it seems, and according to the Department of Homeland Security, was never screened for vulnerabilities, leaving it ripe for failure.
The company is also looking to hire a client services representative, presumably in case another one of their applications fails to work. That hire will &#8220;represent the voice of the customer to ensure we’re building the best possible tools for our users&#8221; and help potential customers &#8220;understand how technology can strengthen campaigns and help organizers be more successful.&#8221;
That&#8217;s a tough ask. SHADOW is now losing clients. As of Tuesday morning, the Nevada Democratic party, which had also hired SHADOW to create a caucus app, has cut ties with the firm.
Monday night, as Iowa caucus-goers haggled over delegates, the app crashed dramatically, leaving some precincts completely locked out of sharing their results. Others were forced to tangle with code that seemed incomplete. In the end, SHADOW&#8217;s app processed barely a quarter of the caucus results, and late Wednesday, nearly 48 hours after the Iowa caucuses closed, there is no complete data set declaring a Democratic winner in Iowa.
ACRONYM released a statement <a href="https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb">distancing itself from SHADOW Monday night</a>, calling SHADOW an &#8220;independent&#8221; project. But the <a href="https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb">Associated Press reports</a> that ACRONYM launched SHADOW just recently, staffing it with veterans of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s failed 2016 presidential campaign.
The connection also drew questions of conflict of interest; ACRONYM&#8217;s founder Tara McGowan, is married to Michael Halle, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s senior campaign advisor. Buttigieg paid SHADOW around $42,500 for a text messaging system (though both SHADOW and Buttigieg&#8217;s campaign disavow any link between Buttigieg and the failed Iowa caucus app) and, the Free Beacon notes, McGowan appears, from her social media, to be Buttigieg supporter.
ACRONYM does have deep ties to the Democratic establishment, even if it won&#8217;t acknowledge that SHADOW appears to have been an attempt to make money off of two state-level Democratic parties. ACRONYM and it&#8217;s PAC partner, creatively named &#8220;PACRONYM,&#8221; have <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/steyer-pelosi-pacs-funded-shadowy-group-behind-botched-iowa-app/">cashed checks from a who&#8217;s who of Democratic elite</a>, including the House Majority PAC, affiliated with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Hollywood power player Stephen Spielberg, and far-left megadonor George Soros.

Iowa Caucus app

Dark Money Group That Bankrolled Faulty Iowa Caucus App, Seeking A New Chief Of Staff

Even though results from the Iowa caucuses are still pouring in, one thing seems like a near-certainty: Former Vice President Joe Biden had an abysmal showing and will close out the state in fourth place.
Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Biden simply referred to his loss in Iowa as a &#8220;gut punch,&#8221; though he also took the moment to knock the procedural disaster that unfolded on Monday night.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We took a gut punch in Iowa,” Biden said, as reported by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/05/joe-biden-iowa-caucus-gut-punch-110837">Politico</a>. “The whole process took a gut punch. But look, this isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been knocked down.”
Biden&#8217;s concession is a markedly different statement than the one he gave on Tuesday, as the results in Iowa still hung in the balance. At the time, he said he had a &#8220;good night.&#8221;
“We had a good night last night in Iowa. I know you think that’s silly,” Biden said at the time. “But everything we can feel, it’s good. Here’s the deal, we think we’re going to come out of there really doing well.”
As <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/iowa-caucuses-joe-biden-presidential-trump-democrats-20200205.html">reported</a> by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the former vice president&#8217;s poor showing in Iowa — he currently holds just 15.4% of the statewide vote — has severely raised concern among the Democratic Party establishment:
<blockquote>In Iowa, Biden trailed the top moderate candidate, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and the leading progressive, Bernie Sanders, according to initial returns from 71% of precincts. He was running fourth, close to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who just days ago polled in single digits.
That leaves some establishment Democrats, including some Biden supporters, questioning his contention that he&#8217;ll reclaim clear front-runner status in the race against President Donald Trump once the primary fight moves beyond overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire to more racially diverse electorates. And it&#8217;s a reminder of how Biden&#8217;s previous presidential campaigns never advanced beyond Iowa.</blockquote>
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As of now, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) holds a comfortable lead in New Hampshire — a state he also won in 2016 — while Biden leads in Nevada. However, as Sanders shores up momentum, even Nevada could be at stake for the former vice president. According to Bill Freeman, a Biden donor from Nashville, three losses in a row would put Biden in serious hot water.
“If he came in fourth, yeah, that could hurt,” said Freeman. “That’s a bad night, no matter how you spin it.”
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Alex Sink, a Democratic donor, said that people will now hold back to see how Biden performs and look to another candidate like former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
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“I was anxious to do it because, like so many others, I’m curious and interested and worried about who our candidate will be and how we are going to beat Trump,” said Sink. “Most of my friends don’t know yet who they are voting for.&#8221;
Despite losing Iowa and most likely losing New Hampshire, many Biden supporters are looking ahead to Nevada and South Carolina to give him the boost that he needs.
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Joe Biden Campaigns In New Hampshire Ahead Of Primary

Biden Reacts To 4th Place In Iowa: A ‘Gut Punch’

On Monday night, reporting amid the Iowa caucuses that turned out to be a debacle, an MSNBC reporter reported on what a disastrous night it was for the Biden campaign, but as he did, a man and a woman apparently working for MSNBC and caught on a hot mic were discussing the night when the man commented, “God, what an f***ing disaster.”
 The reporter was in the middle of his spiel, which started like this:
<blockquote>But if we talk about what we can maybe call the “Joni Ernst factor,” how much is (sic)  the impeachment proceedings in Washington weighing on the mindset of these caucus-goers, what the Biden campaign has actually said is that they had some of their best fund-raising numbers in January as his name was being repeated often, but we also need to talk about the Mike Bloomberg factor, which is the fact that he’s now waiting in the wings —</blockquote>
At that point, a male voice could be heard in the background saying, “God, what an f***ing disaster.”
 The reporter continued, “ — waiting for Super Tuesday, potentially  to step in if Biden is not seen as as strong a candidate as he entered this race; the fundraising could really shrink in a hurry for the former vice-president with a poor showing here, and that’s the biggest concern, the fundraising more than the results here.”
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-top-biden-surrogate-iowa-caucus-results-cant-be-trusted">The Daily Wire</a> noted, Dana Remus, general counsel for the Biden campaign, sent a letter to the Iowa Democratic Party demanding answers for what happened at the caucuses, writing:
<blockquote>I write on behalf of the Biden for President Campaign regarding the considerable flaws in tonight’s Iowa Caucus reporting system, The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephonic reporting system likewise has failed. Now, we understand that Caucus Chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the Party. These acute failures are concurring statewide …
We appreciate that you plan to brief the campaigns momentarily on these issues, and we plan to participate. However, 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 look forward to hearing from you promptly.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shadow-faulty-iowa-caucus-app-linked-to-clinton-campaign-veterans">also reported</a>, “Iowa Democrats are blaming reporting inconsistencies and tabulation errors linked to coding problems inside the application, which left organizers confused and unable to report precinct results to the central party, and Democratic candidates all declaring victory in the first-in-the-nation presidential contest. ‘While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld,’ the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement released early Tuesday morning.”
Michael Bloomberg, sensing the disarray, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-bloomberg-makes-major-moves-after-democrats-screw-up-iowa-caucuses">committed to spending even more money</a> on his campaign. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-campaign-ads.html">reported</a>, “Encouraged by the murky outcome, Mr. Bloomberg authorized his campaign team to double his spending on television commercials in every market where he is currently advertising and expand his campaign’s field staff to more than two thousand people, strategists involved in the conversations said.”
Video of hot mic moment below:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MSNBC host last night on a hot mic regarding Democrats&#39; Iowa caucuses: “What an F’ing distaster” <a href="https://t.co/idSaQWEJq0">pic.twitter.com/idSaQWEJq0</a>
&mdash; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1224827037954838528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Microphone, illustration

WATCH: MSNBC Caught On Hot Mic About Iowa Caucuses: ‘What A F***ing Disaster’

MSNBC

Chaos erupted on Tuesday after Democrats only released 62% of the caucus results from Monday night&#8217;s Iowa caucuses, which showed that Pete Buttigieg won the most delegates despite not getting as many votes as Bernie Sanders.
The New York Times reported that the partial results showed the following with respect to the state&#8217;s delegate equivalents:
<ul>
<li>Buttigieg: 26.9%</li>
<li>Sanders 25.1%</li>
<li>Warren: 18.3%</li>
<li>Biden: 15.6%</li>
<li>Klobuchar: 12.6%</li>
<li>Yang: 1.1%</li>
<li>Steyer: 0.3%</li>
</ul>
CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-caucus-results-released-buttigieg-sanders-today-2020-02-04/">reported</a> the popular vote:
<ul>
<li>Sanders: 28,220</li>
<li>Buttigieg: 27,030</li>
<li>Warren: 22,254</li>
<li>Biden: 14,176</li>
<li>Klobuchar: 13,357</li>
</ul>
Chaos initially erupted on Monday night when the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement that it &#8220;found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.&#8221;
Immediately following the announcement that the results were not going to be announced on Monday night, Buttigieg rushed to declare himself the winner of the contest.
&#8220;What a night. Because tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality,&#8221; Buttigieg told his supporters, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/04/politics/pete-buttigieg-iowa-caucus/index.html">CNN</a>. &#8220;So we don&#8217;t know all the results, but we know by the time, it&#8217;s all said and done, Iowa you have shocked the nation. Because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.&#8221;
Shortly after Buttigieg&#8217;s speech, speculation began to swirl around the app that was used that reportedly had the problem and the company that developed the app.
The Washington Examiner <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/buttigieg-campaign-paid-firm-that-developed-voting-app-blamed-for-iowa-caucus-delays">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg&#8217;s campaign contributed money to the technological firm whose voting app contributed to reporting delays in the Iowa caucuses.
Federal Election Commission filings reveal that Buttigieg&#8217;s campaign gave tens of thousands of dollars to Shadow on July 23, 2019, for &#8220;software rights and subscriptions.&#8221;
Shadow, a technology company that has an investor in the Democratic digital nonprofit organization ACRONYM, was also paid $60,000 over two installments by the Iowa Democratic Party to build an app to help make caucus voting easier and faster for precinct volunteers. Filings also reveal that the Nevada Democratic Party paid Shadow $58,000 for &#8220;website development.&#8221;</blockquote>
Online, the revelation that Buttigieg had paid money to the company that developed the app stirred suspicions among some reporters, political commentators, and Bernie supporters.
&#8220;Three different sources say a firm called &#8216;Shadow&#8217; developed the Iowa Dem caucus app. They haven&#8217;t responded to comment, neither has Iowa Dem Party. The firm was paid by both Nevada &amp; Iowa Democratic Party, disclosures show. Also by Mayor Pete&#8217;s campaign,&#8221; Intercept reporter Lee Fang tweeted. &#8220;Nevada Dem federal account paid Shadow $58k in August, Iowa Dems state account paid Shadow $63,183 in two payments over Nov &amp; Dec, suggesting app wasn&#8217;t developed until just months ago? Both caucus states. Shadow is a spin-off from PACRONYM, a new Dem dark money/superPAC hybrid.&#8221;
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Nevada Dem federal account paid Shadow $58k in August, Iowa Dems state account paid Shadow $63,183 in two payments over Nov &amp; Dec, suggesting app wasn&#39;t developed until just months ago? Both caucus states. Shadow is a spin-off from PACRONYM, a new Dem dark money/superPAC hybrid.
&mdash; Lee Fang (@lhfang) <a href="https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1224562950133800961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In a separate tweet, which linked to a report that he wrote, Fang <a href="http://archive.is/aSap5">added</a>: &#8220;Dem group behind Shadow distanced itself from the Iowa caucus developer. But they share office space, briefings &amp; resources. The team is made up of former Hillary campaign staff tied to Mayor Pete and have privately expressed hostility to Bernie.&#8221;
In his <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-shadow-acronym/">report</a>, Fang wrote:
<blockquote>Democratic operative Tara McGowan is denying that her high-profile liberal firm ACRONYM played a role in the Monday evening caucus debacle, claiming that her firm was merely an investor in the company Shadow Inc., which developed the app at the center of the controversy. But internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow.
&#8230;
A person with knowledge of the company’s culture, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, shared communications showing that top officials at the company regularly expressed hostility to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s supporters. McGowan is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist with the Buttigieg campaign. There is no evidence any preference of candidates had any effect on the coding issue that is stalling the Iowa results.
&#8230;
Federal campaign finance records show that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Nevada Democratic Party retained Shadow to develop its caucus app. Shadow has also been retained for digital services by Buttigieg’s campaign, which paid the company $42,500 for software-related services last July, and by Joe Biden’s campaign, which paid Shadow $1,225 for text messaging services, last July as well.
Shadow was launched by former staffers to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, including Niemira, Krista Davis, Ahna Rao, and James Hickey, according to professional biographies listed on LinkedIn. Shadow did not respond to a request for comment.
Acronym, which includes a hybrid model of a 501(c)4 entity that does not disclose donors and a Super PAC that does, has been a favorite for deep-pocketed Democratic donors.</blockquote>
The fact that nothing nefarious had been reported did not stop speculation and conspiracies from exploding online.
One political commentator wrote: &#8220;Not great optics here, folks: &#8211; Dems paid company literally called Shadow to create caucus app &#8211; Buttigieg campaign also paid Shadow, FEC records show &#8211; Caucus app fails &#8211; Buttigieg declares himself Iowa winner with no results&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Not great optics here, folks:
&#8211; Dems paid company literally called Shadow to create caucus app &#8211; Buttigieg campaign also paid Shadow, FEC records show &#8211; Caucus app fails &#8211; Buttigieg declares himself Iowa winner with no results
&mdash; Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1224573131731369994?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Other accounts on Twitter used the hashtags &#8220;Pete The Cheat&#8221; and &#8220;Mayor Cheat&#8221; in attacking Buttigieg:
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucusDisaster?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucusDisaster</a> If you think this bozo will ever be president, you&#39;re delusional.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorCheat</a> <a href="https://t.co/6gbojIThWR">pic.twitter.com/6gbojIThWR</a>
&mdash; Pat the Berner🌹 (@PatTheBerner) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatTheBerner/status/1224801514121641984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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So <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PeteButtigieg</a> has an advisor that is married to the woman in charge of this Shadow debacle? AND in July 2019 Petey paid that company 21k twice for rights on that very app that malfunctioned in Iowa? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorCheat</a>
&mdash; Julie Smith 🌹 (@JulieSmithM) <a href="https://twitter.com/JulieSmithM/status/1224775192787898368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Lets make <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorCheat</a> stick for the rest of this motherfucker&#39;s political career
&mdash; Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) <a href="https://twitter.com/shujaxhaider/status/1224765221950148608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Bernie won, Andrew Yang did well and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorCheat</a> trying to steal the election. What will be done about this? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucus</a>
&mdash; James Ellars 🧢 (@Ellars) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ellars/status/1224589414216556544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PeteTheCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PeteTheCheat</a> with his shit eating grin and vacant stare. Victory my ass. He deserves ridicule. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PresidentSanders?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PresidentSanders</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DNCisCorrupt?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DNCisCorrupt</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucusDisaster?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucusDisaster</a> <a href="https://t.co/BHlp5XIamM">pic.twitter.com/BHlp5XIamM</a>
&mdash; Thia is #BernieOrBust 🩰😏✌️🔥 (@ThiaBallerina) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThiaBallerina/status/1224731293587345409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Buttigieg getting ratio&#39;d on every tweet he has put out since he proclaimed victory with 0% of precincts reporting. Not to mention <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorCheat</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PeteTheCheat?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PeteTheCheat</a> trending throughout the night <a href="https://t.co/boFs9lFqVe">pic.twitter.com/boFs9lFqVe</a>
&mdash; Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealAlexRubi/status/1224666241220141056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

Pete Buttigieg Holds Watch Party Event On Night Of Iowa Caucus

Democrats Release Iowa Caucus Results, Chaos Gets Even Worse

Speaking on CNN after the Iowa caucuses had become a debacle, members of a panel on CNN decided on one salient reason that Iowa caucuses should not hold the position of prominence they do: too many white people in Iowa.
CNN commentator and former Barack Obama administration official Van Jones, who served as Obama&#8217;s Special Advisor for Green Jobs and also was a co-host for CNN&#8217;s &#8220;Crossfire,&#8221; posited, “I just think that the idea of the caucus has failed to meet the viability threshold. The idea of the caucus itself has failed to meet the viability threshold because we’ve all been saying the whole time, ‘Why Iowa in the first place? It’s 90% white.’ When you have a party as diverse as this to be in a state that’s not as diverse is terrible. People ain’t going to be able to vote and go home. I don’t like caucuses in the first place, but if you can’t even deliver on your one job … you have only one job, Iowa.”
A CNN host turned to former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, asking, “Governor, you’ve talked about this before … what state would you like to have come first?”
As the panel joked, “Virginia,&#8221; amid laughter, McAuliffe answered, “I think we should start regionally; You should do three or four or five states; you shouldn’t have one; it shouldn’t be Iowa; it shouldn’t be New Hampshire. You look at these entrance data; 90% of the caucus-goers today were white. Well, if you take the whole landscape of the election, it’s 60%. So it’s way skewed out of line. I would get rid of all the caucuses, first of all.”
Of course, what the panelists ignored is the fact that in 2008, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, who are both white, and race didn’t seem to matter. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/politics/04elect.html">The New York Times</a> reported at the time:
<blockquote>Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a first-term Democratic senator trying to become the nation’s first African-American president, rolled to victory in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday night, lifted by a record turnout of voters who embraced his promise of change.
The victory by Mr. Obama, 46, amounted to a startling setback for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 60, of New York, who just months ago presented herself as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. The result left uncertain the prospects for John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, who had staked his second bid for the White House on winning Iowa …
A record number of Democrats turned out to caucus more than 239,000, compared with fewer than 125,000 in 2004 producing scenes of overcrowded firehouses and schools and long lines of people waiting to register their preferences. The images stood as evidence of the success of Mr. Obama’s effort to reach out to thousands of first-time caucusgoers, including many independent voters and younger voters.</blockquote>
Obama also won in white-dominated states such as Idaho, Utah, and North Dakota, proving that race did not matter to the voters as Obama rolled on to victory for the presidential nomination.
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CNN is racist.
During the DNC meltdown last night, CNN reflexively attacked Iowa for being &quot;too white.&quot;
&#8211; &quot;Why Iowa in the first place? It’s 90% white. This state is not diverse &amp; it&#39;s terrible&quot;
Saying a state is &quot;terrible&quot; because of the color of peoples skin.
CNN is racist. <a href="https://t.co/ek0sT4IW7U">pic.twitter.com/ek0sT4IW7U</a>
&mdash; Benny (@bennyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1224730775955943425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Logos Munich

WATCH: Dems On CNN Panel: Iowa Shouldn’t Go First Because It’s Too White

Van Jones

Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, reportedly instructed his team on Tuesday to rapidly increase the amount of money that he is spending on advertising and to add thousands of new paid staff to his campaign after Democrats dropped the ball during the Iowa caucuses last night.
&#8220;Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor whose campaign is fueled by a multibillion-dollar personal fortune, conferred with advisers on Tuesday morning about the muddled results in Iowa,&#8221; The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-campaign-ads.html">reported</a>. &#8220;Encouraged by the murky outcome, Mr. Bloomberg authorized his campaign team to double his spending on television commercials in every market where he is currently advertising and expand his campaign’s field staff to more than two thousand people, strategists involved in the conversations said.&#8221;
Bloomberg, a 77-year-old worth $60.2 billion,  has dished out a massive $248 million to run commercials since declaring his candidacy for president in late November, according to the latest data from the ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics,” Fox News reported. “By comparison, no other candidate in the Democratic presidential primary field has topped $30 million in spending.”
Advertising Analytics account manager Ben Taber told Fox News: “Bloomberg’s buy is truly unprecedented. For context, the Clinton campaign in 2016 spent $230 million throughout the course of the entire election, including the general. Bloomberg has spent more than that since November 25th. This cycle, Bloomberg has spent three times more than Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, and Biden, combined.”
Bloomberg&#8217;s massive increase in spending may trigger increased attacks from his Democrat opponents as they they feel threatened by his spending capabilities.
On Monday, Nina Turner, a top surrogate for Bernie Sanders, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-bernie-surrogate-unloads-on-bloomberg-an-oligarch-and-stain-on-america">told</a> MSNBC that Bloomberg was an &#8220;oligarch&#8221; and was a &#8220;stain&#8221; on America.
Daily Wire Editor at Large Josh Hammer wrote an in-depth profile piece on Bloomberg last September highlighting his policy views:
<blockquote>On The Issues: Bloomberg’s general political profile is that of a fiscal and national security centrist, although he positions himself far to the left on social issues — with his <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/05/bloomberg-unveils-expansive-gun-control-plan-076376">anti-gun advocacy</a> perhaps emerging as the political issue with which he has become most closely identified. The latter stages of Bloomberg’s mayoral tenure were marked by odd flirtations with nanny state-style progressive governance, with the infamous <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/03/11/the-new-york-city-soda-ban-explained/">“soda ban”</a> as the most prominent example. Furthermore, in terms of hot-button leftist issues, Bloomberg’s current 2020 presidential campaign is aggressively <a href="https://www.mikebloomberg.com/policies/international-climate-priorities">advertising</a> his commitment to combatting global warming. But on bread-and-butter issues pertaining to fiscal prudence and foreign policy — perhaps especially with respect to Israel and the Middle East — Bloomberg is generally <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-michael-bloomberg-would-have-no-chance-at-the-democratic-presidential-nomination">far more centrist</a> than most of his other primary opponents.
&#8230;
Guns: Bloomberg’s anti-gun advocacy is perhaps the single most defining issue of his recent private citizen activism — and perhaps the single most defining issue of his 2020 presidential bid. He is very closely affiliated with and has <a href="https://everytown.org/press/new-gun-violence-prevention-group-everytown-for-gun-safety-unites-mayors-moms-and-millions-of-americans-on-new-paths-to-victory-state-capitols-corporate-responsibility-voter-activation/">helped</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/bloomberg-gun-violence-moms-demand-action-volunteers">fund</a> Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, which are both groups deeply hostile to Second Amendment rights. He also co-founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns while he was mayor of New York City. Bloomberg supports <a href="https://www.mikebloomberg.com/policies/gun-safety">“universal” background checks</a>, which often serve as a rhetorical euphemism for the government serving as an intermediary in all private firearms transfers. Bloomberg believes that every gun owner should need a permit before making a gun purchase. He <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cory-booker-wants-a-ban-on-assault-weapons-and-yes-it-means-putting-gun-owners-in-jail" data-reader-unique-id="49">supports a ban</a> on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called “assault weapons” — a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42837/hammer-kamala-harriss-flirtation-banning-all-semi-josh-hammer" data-reader-unique-id="50">lead to the banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America</a>.</blockquote>
Read Hammer&#8217;s full report on Bloomberg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/where-does-michael-bloomberg-stand-on-the-issues-heres-everything-you-need-to-know">here</a>. 
This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

Mike Bloomberg Campaigns For President In El Paso

Bloomberg Makes Major Moves After Democrats Screw Up Iowa Caucuses

Well, that didn&#8217;t take long.
Democrats in Iowa, using a voting app ordered by the Iowa Democratic Party and designed by Democrats, failed in spectacular fashion on Monday to conduct the first-in-the-nation caucuses to ultimately decide the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
But wait. The Democrats aren&#8217;t to blame. Apparently, President Trump is.
&#8220;It might be helpful to have a President and government that understand technology so this sort of thing doesn’t happen,&#8221; candidate Andrew Yang wrote on Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
It might be helpful to have a President and government that understand technology so this sort of thing doesn’t happen.
&mdash; Andrew Yang🧢 (@AndrewYang) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1224572709918650369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Yang, 45, made his fortune in the tech industry. But he didn&#8217;t explain how Trump perhaps better understanding technology would have prevented the debacle in Iowa.
In a statement early Tuesday, the Iowa Democratic Party blamed a “coding issue in the reporting system” for the problems, the Associated Press reported. &#8220;The problem kept party officials from releasing results from Monday’s caucus, the much-hyped kickoff to the 2020 primary. It was an embarrassing twist after months of promoting the contest as a chance for Democrats to find some clarity in a jumbled field with no clear front-runner.&#8221;
Top Trump officials also said there was no external influence on the app. “No one hacked into it, so this is more of a stress or load issue, as well as a reporting issue we’re seeing in Iowa,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dhs-acting-secretary-iowa-democratic-party-refused-help-testing-failed-caucus-app">said acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf</a> in an interview with Fox on Tuesday morning.
Conspiracy theories abound, including one in which Democrats are trying to shut down Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the socialist from Vermont who increasingly found himself atop the polls in Iowa.
Wrote Eoin Higgins, a senior editor for Common Dreams: &#8220;Iowa Democratic Party uses secretive app for caucus reporting — App stops working a few hours before caucus begins — Results trickle in but show dominating performance for Sanders, death knell for Biden camp — Counting now shut down by DNC for &#8216;quality control.&#8217; I have that right?&#8221;
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-Iowa Democratic Party uses secretive app for caucus reporting -App stops working a few hours before caucus begins -Results trickle in but show dominating performance for Sanders, death knell for Biden camp -Counting now shut down by DNC for &quot;quality control&quot;
I have that right?
&mdash; Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) <a href="https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1224535221024034816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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For his part, Trump put the blame squarely on Democrats in Iowa.
&#8220;The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not. I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!&#8221; Trump wrote first thing in the morning.
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The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not. I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224702718754856960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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And Trump said: &#8220;The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is &#8216;Trump.'&#8221;
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The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224657196392370177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Twitter users had a field day with Yang&#8217;s post.
&#8220;You want President Trump to step in and fix this mess for the Dem party? I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;d love to be asked,&#8221; wrote one user.
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You want President Trump to step in and fix this mess for the Dem party? I&#39;m sure he&#39;d love to be asked.
&mdash; Michael (@MkHmmr) <a href="https://twitter.com/MkHmmr/status/1224574929250717696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;It might be helpful to have a President who understands the President doesnt have anything to do with that,&#8221; wrote another.
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It might be helpful to have a President who understands the President doesnt have anything to do with that.
&mdash; Dusty (@dustopian) <a href="https://twitter.com/dustopian/status/1224657008730824704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Yes, Republicans did not have any issue. The democrats ran their caucus and simply messed it up every single step of the way. Worse it will be suspect even after they eventually get some results. Democrats have a plan, unfortunately it is a disaster,&#8221; wrote a third.
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Yes, Republicans did not have any issue. The democrats ran their caucus and simply messed it up every single step of the way. Worse it will be suspect even after they eventually get some results.
Democrats have a plan, unfortunately it is a disaster.
&mdash; politically_matt (@MattPolitically) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattPolitically/status/1224676670642237440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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And a fourth summed it all up. &#8220;The President doesn’t get to run the caucus, dumbass. Might be helpful to have a president who understands how elections work or what states or political parties are.&#8221;
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The President doesn’t get to run the caucus, dumbass. Might be helpful to have a president who understands how elections work or what states or political parties are.
&mdash; Ali (@ali) <a href="https://twitter.com/ali/status/1224580659030765568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Presidential Candidates Hit The Soapbox At The Iowa State Fair

Democratic Presidential Candidate Knows Who’s To Blame For Iowa Vote Debacle — It’s President Trump!

Andrew Yang

Chris Matthews likened it to a &#8220;three car funeral,&#8221; Joe Scarborough called it a bad omen, and Jeffrey Toobin simply hailed it an embarrassment. No matter who one consults about Monday night&#8217;s Iowa Democratic Party caucuses, the opinions among Democrats and their allies are nearly universal: Trump won big.
Over at MSNBC, a noticeably disgusted Chris Matthews said President Trump was &#8220;chuckling all night&#8221; as the Democratic Party struggled to so much as organize a &#8220;three car funeral.&#8221;
&#8220;The guy in the White House is chuckling all night here, showing the Democrats can&#8217;t even get a three car funeral organized, or whatever you want to call it. I would say to the people of Iowa, &#8216;Will the last person leaving Des Moines, please turn out the lights?&#8217;  This has not been a success,&#8221; Matthews frustratingly declared, as reported by <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/scott-whitlock/2020/02/04/disgusted-matthews-mocks-three-car-funeral-iowa-preview-dem">Newsbusters</a>.
Matthews then tried to spin this gross display of incompetence on the part of the Democrats into the fault of the Iowa caucuses themselves, even though Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez was <a href="https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1224475047974330369?s=20">literally boasting</a> hours before the election about the &#8220;reforms&#8221; the party had instituted to ensure a more transparent primary process.
&#8220;I think we have to ask ourselves about the viability of the Iowa caucuses as an institution to start off this decision this country has to make to find someone to challenge Trump,&#8221; continued Matthews.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Chris Matthews on Iowa Caucuses: This has not been a success. <a href="https://t.co/tAmEUmfDXO">pic.twitter.com/tAmEUmfDXO</a>
&mdash; The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1224567133364862976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Joe Scarborough of &#8220;Morning Joe&#8221; blasted the party for leaving the results of Monday night&#8217;s important election in the hands of a &#8220;crappy app&#8221; they did not even know would properly work.
&#8220;What is wrong with the Iowa Democratic Party?&#8221; Scarborough began on Tuesday morning. &#8220;Again, this is a party who botched the call four years ago, rushed it when the media was shocked that they would be so transparent, and now they get on the phone for 74 seconds? The world&#8217;s watching this. We&#8217;re not being melodramatic.&#8221;
&#8220;For a year and a half, American politics has been focused on this moment, and the Democratic Party has a crappy app and say, well, nothing happened to the app,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Then you hear reports something did happen to the app. Was there election interference? Did somebody try to hack into the app? Was it just pure incompetence? Did they lose the information? Why were they only on the phone for 74 seconds when they should be holding two-hour press conferences explaining to America and the world what happened.&#8221;
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&quot;The world&#39;s watching this,&quot; says <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeNBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoeNBC</a> of the delayed results for the Iowa caucuses <a href="https://t.co/RqtL1EY6Qj">pic.twitter.com/RqtL1EY6Qj</a>
&mdash; Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) <a href="https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe/status/1224656620447289345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Writing at CNN, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/03/opinions/iowa-caucus-is-an-embarrassment-toobin/index.html">minced no words</a> by deeming the night an &#8220;embarrassment.&#8221; Toobin even argued that the whole concept of the Iowa caucuses should be scrapped altogether.
&#8220;Maybe the fiasco of the late reporting results from the Iowa caucus this year will have a positive legacy — the end of the caucus process and the invitation to another state to start the delegate selection process,&#8221; wrote Toobin. &#8220;The caucuses are an embarrassment to the Democratic Party and the United States. This is no way to pick a nominee.&#8221;
None other than hardcore Bernie Sanders supporter Cenk Uygur of &#8220;The Young Turks&#8221; expressed the most outrage over the Iowa results.
&#8220;I’m enraged about the lack of transparency from Democratic officials in Iowa &amp; nationally. Who designed the vote counting app &amp; who paid for it? The point of winning #IowaCaucuses is to get positive press coverage and now that’s ruined,&#8221; Uygur declared on Twitter. 
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I’m enraged about the lack of transparency from Democratic officials in Iowa &amp; nationally. Who designed the vote counting app &amp; who paid for it? The point of winning <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucuses?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucuses</a> is to get positive press coverage and now that’s ruined. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NotMeUs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NotMeUs</a>
&mdash; Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) <a href="https://twitter.com/cenkuygur/status/1224566964623798272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/cenkuygur?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cenkuygur</a> on impact of delayed <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucus</a> results, &quot;The press that you get out of it is the relevant part of Iowa and they just ruined that for the winner.&quot;
Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tytlive?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#tytlive</a>: <a href="https://t.co/epNjbsjqnS">https://t.co/epNjbsjqnS</a> <a href="https://t.co/vL7WIf6FuG">pic.twitter.com/vL7WIf6FuG</a>
&mdash; The Young Turks (@TheYoungTurks) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks/status/1224567250994094080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Chris Matthews

‘Three Car Funeral’: Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Others Freak Over Iowa Embarrassment

Cenk Uygur

Joe Scarborough

Morning Joe

The faulty tabulation app, now being blamed for sending the Iowa Democratic caucus into complete chaos, has been linked to a firm called &#8220;SHADOW&#8221; and a Democratic non-profit known as &#8220;ACRONYM,&#8221; founded by former members of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign.
Iowa Democrats are blaming reporting inconsistencies and tabulation errors linked to coding problems inside the application, which left organizers confused and unable to report precinct results to the central party, and Democratic candidates all declaring victory in the first-in-the-nation presidential contest.
&#8220;While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld,” the Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement released early Tuesday morning. An updated estimate suggested official results may not be available until Wednesday. Campaigns have, instead, released internal numbers. Unsurprisingly, each campaign claims to have either won or overperformed, despite record low caucus turnout.
A firm called &#8220;SHADOW&#8221; designed the app for the Iowa Democratic Party &#8212; and several, similar apps for other states that also host caucuses &#8212; for just $60,000 and it was intended to simply &#8220;add up and report the caucus vote at each precinct,&#8221; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/02/04/heres-everything-we-know-about-the-app-that-reportedly-disrupted-the-iowa-caucus/#50acdb5a3303">according to Forbes magazine</a>. Iowa has only 170,000 voters, and just dozens of caucuses, which should have made collecting and handling the results rather simple.
But the app was never tested, according to some reports, and SHADOW did not allow the Department of Homeland Security to screen the app for potential weaknesses, leaving the system exposed to hackers. Some campaigns, including former Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s, refused to use the app amid concerns about security and reliability.
&#8220;Our IT team expressed security concerns about it, and it ultimately did not pass our cybersecurity checklist.&#8221; the <a href="https://twitter.com/tparti/status/1224744879856717824">campaign told reporters Tuesday</a>.
Perhaps the most bizarre complication of all, though, is SHADOW&#8217;s affiliations and its connections both to Hillary Clinton&#8217;s failed 2016 presidential campaign and to current Democratic presidential campaigns.
&#8220;The firm behind the app reportedly is Shadow, an affiliate of ACRONYM, a Democratic nonprofit founded in 2017 &#8216;to educate, inspire, register, and mobilize voters,&#8217; according to its website. Shadow started out as Groundbase, a tech developer co-founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu">Los Angeles Times</a>. &#8220;ACRONYM’s founder and CEO is Tara McGowan, a former journalist and digital producer with President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.&#8221;
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The caucus app blamed for the Iowa vote count chaos was created by tech firm Shadow, Inc.
Shadow&#39;s CEO Gerard Niemira, product manager Ahna Rao, CTO Krista Davis, and COO James Hickey all worked on the Hillary for America campaign. <a href="https://t.co/hA0JPYX5Ig">pic.twitter.com/hA0JPYX5Ig</a>
&mdash; Michael Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1224659991107211264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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ACRONYM tried to <a href="https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/1224602961499672576">distance itself from SHADOW Tuesday night</a>, to no avail, particularly after it emerged that SHADOW had a conflict of interest in creating the application: it was working for former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg on separate projects.
Buttigieg&#8217;s campaign  &#8220;paid $42,500 to the firm in July 2019 for &#8216;software rights and subscriptions,&#8217; according to disclosures to the FEC,&#8221; per the LA Times. The campaign said Tuesday that they paid SHADOW for &#8220;a service used to send text messages to voters.&#8221; SHADOW also did work for Biden and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who exited the race for the Democratic presidential nomination late last year. &#8220;Biden and former contender Kirsten Gillibrand paid SHADOW for campaign work⁠—$1,225 and $37,400 respectively,&#8221; according to Forbes.

Clinton

‘SHADOW’: Faulty Iowa Caucus App Linked To Clinton Campaign Veterans

Hillary Clinton

Last night&#8217;s Iowa caucuses debacle was nothing less than a catastrophe for the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee. &#8220;You had one job,&#8221; as the <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-had-one-job">popular meme</a> goes, and the Iowa Democratic Party failed did not merely fail that job — it exhibited the kind of reckless and gross incompetence that would be merely embarrassing were it not for the rather Orwellian fact that these are the same people who want to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-the-democrat-party-cant-run-its-own-primary-but-wants-to-run-the-health-care-system">nationalize and control our health care</a>. As of this moment, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-to-watch-for-during-tonights-iowa-caucuses">politicos across the country</a> are still waiting with bated breath for official results from last night&#8217;s caucuses.
The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) has issued a preliminary official response, as The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ashe Schow <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/iowa-democrats-on-caucus-debacle-we-gotta-learn-to-code">reported</a> this morning:
<blockquote>As precinct caucus results started coming in, the IDP ran them through an accuracy and quality check. It became clear that there were inconsistencies with the reports. The underlying cause of these inconsistencies was not immediately clear, and required investigation, which took time.
As this investigation unfolded, IDP staff activated pre-planned backup measures and entered data manually. This took longer than expected.
As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound. While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately.</blockquote>
That underlying app, it turns out, was developed, in large part, with the failed 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign&#8217;s campaign manager, <a href="https://twitter.com/ComfortablySmug/status/1224541115241680902">Robby Mook</a>. Some Democrats and leftists last night were indeed quick to blame Mook for their party&#8217;s Hawkeye State woes.
&#8220;I’ve always felt like Robby Mook didn’t get enough credit for his part in tanking Hillary’s campaign but now knowing he was behind this failed Iowa app I’m positive he was fully responsible for tanking Hillary’s campaign,&#8221; tweeted Mashable&#8217;s Matt Binder.
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I’ve always felt like Robby Mook didn’t get enough credit for his part in tanking Hillary’s campaign but now knowing he was behind this failed Iowa app I’m positive he was fully responsible for tanking Hillary’s campaign
&mdash; Matt Binder (@MattBinder) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1224540937138966528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Now, as of this morning, we know that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially reached out to the IDP to see if the state party wanted any help with vetting the new technology. The IDP, in turn, brazenly refused the feds&#8217; request.
&#8220;Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf says the Iowa Democrat[ic] Party declined to have their new caucus app vetted by the department,&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/dhs-sec-chad-wolf-democrats-iowa-clinton-app">reports</a>. &#8220;Appearing on &#8216;Fox &amp; Friends&#8217; with co-host Steve Doocy, Wolf said that the DHS cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency had offered to test the app from a &#8216;hacking perspective,&#8217; but the party had declined.&#8221;
&#8220;They declined and so we are seeing a couple of issues with it,&#8221; Wolf added, according to the outlet.
Heather Swift, officials spokesperson for DHS, also corroborated Wolf&#8217;s on-air narrative.
&#8220;Homeland Security&#8217;s [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] offered to test the Iowa Caucus app,&#8221; she tweeted. &#8220;They declined. See [Acting Secretary Wolf] interview,&#8221; she added, linking to Wolf&#8217;s &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends&#8221; appearance.
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Homeland Security&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/CISAgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CISAgov</a> offered to test the Iowa Caucus app. They declined. See <a href="https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DHS_Wolf</a> interview <a href="https://t.co/GoQeEMZbuJ">https://t.co/GoQeEMZbuJ</a>
&mdash; Heather Swift, DHS spokesperson (@SpoxDHS) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpoxDHS/status/1224684831558324225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Suffice it to say this is not exactly the start the Democratic Party wanted for its campaign to defeat President Donald Trump this November.

Chad Wolf

DHS Acting Secretary: Iowa Democratic Party Refused Help Testing Failed Caucus App

2016 election

Fox News

Robby Mook

In a piece published early Tuesday morning, prominent statistician and political analyst Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight, explained why the Democrats&#8217; debacle in Iowa &#8220;<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iowa-might-have-screwed-up-the-whole-nomination-process/">might have screwed up the whole nomination process</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;In trying to build a forecast model of the Democratic primaries, we literally had to think about the entire process from start (Iowa) to finish (the Virgin Islands on June 6),&#8221; Silver begins. &#8220;Actually, we had to do more than that. Since the nomination process is sequential — states vote one at a time rather than all at once — we had to determine, empirically, how much the results of one state can affect the rest.&#8221;
So what do the &#8220;delayed&#8221; results in Iowa do to the process? Far more than most people might surmise, Silver explains.
Despite the Iowa delegates accounting for only 41 of the Democrats’ 3,979 pledged delegates, &#8220;based on testing how much the results in various states have historically changed the candidates’ position in national polls,&#8221; Iowa has historically been &#8220;the second most-important date on the calendar this year, trailing only Super Tuesday,&#8221; Silver explains.
According to FiveThirtyEight&#8217;s number-crunching, rather than being worth a measly 41 delegates, Iowa&#8217;s influence is &#8220;worth the equivalent of almost 800 delegates.&#8221;
FiveThirtyEight calculated that the Iowa &#8220;bounce&#8221; would amount to about a magnitude of 23 points as a result of &#8220;all the favorable media coverage that winning candidates get&#8221; — the most significant bounce of any of the individual states and only seven points less than the combined impact of Super Tuesday (March 3).
Though Silver notes that things were &#8220;a little weird in Iowa this year,&#8221; with multiple factors indicating that it would have a little less impact than normal, what transpired was something even FiveThirtyEight could not have predicted:
<blockquote>[W]e weren’t prepared for what <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/iowa-caucus-2020-election-live/">actually happened</a>, which is that — as I’m writing this at 3:15 a.m. on Tuesday — the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucuses.html">Iowa Democratic Party literally hasn’t released any results from its caucuses</a>. I’m not going to predict what those numbers will eventually be, although early indications are that Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and perhaps Elizabeth Warren had good results. The point is that the lead story around the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses is now — and will forever be — the colossal s***show around the failure to release results in a timely fashion.</blockquote>
&#8220;Maybe there will eventually be a decent-sized Iowa bounce despite all of this,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;But there’s a good chance that the candidates who did well in Iowa get screwed, and the candidates who did poorly there get a mulligan. &#8230; Iowa is all about the media narrative it produces and all about momentum, and that momentum, whoever wins, is likely to have been blunted.&#8221;
Silver then offers some thoughts on who this might end up helping by presenting a newly created model providing FiveThirtyEight&#8217;s guesstimate on candidates&#8217; chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates. The big winner, by far, is former Vice President Joe Biden.
Before the Iowa &#8220;sh**show,&#8221; FiveThirtyEight gave Biden a 43% chance to win, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) 31%, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) 4%, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg 4%. With no &#8220;Iowa bounce,&#8221; the statisticians give Biden 50% (up seven points), Sanders 24% (down seven points), Warren 5% (even) and Buttigieg less than one (down more than three points).
&#8220;The presence of Iowa was helpful to Bernie Sanders, whose chances of winning a national delegate majority would have been 24 percent without Iowa — as compared to the 31 percent chance that he had with Iowa, as of Monday afternoon,&#8221; Silver explains. &#8220;Iowa was hurtful to Joe Biden, however, whose chances of a delegate majority would have been 50 percent without it, rather than 43 percent with it. And Iowa was extremely helpful to Buttigieg, whose chances of winning the delegate majority were fairly low even with Iowa — keep in mind that he had slipped to third in polls of Iowa and fifth in national polls — but would have been virtually nonexistent (less than 1 percent) without it.&#8221;
Omitting Iowa would also increase the chance of &#8220;an unstructured race and a potential brokered convention,&#8221; Silver notes, rising from a 17% chance of no candidate gaining a majority to 20% without Iowa.
Silver concludes by stating what many non-statisticians have declared already: The disaster in Iowa is &#8220;not a good situation for the Democratic Party&#8221; and &#8220;it’s already too late for the damage to be entirely undone.&#8221; (<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iowa-might-have-screwed-up-the-whole-nomination-process/">Read Silver&#8217;s full analysis here</a>.)

Democratic Presidential Candidates

Nate Silver: Why Democrats’ Iowa Debacle Might’ve Just Screwed Up Entire Nomination Process

Nate Silver

The Democratic Party Iowa caucuses on Monday night unfolded like an AFC playoff game in which the NFC team somehow came out the winner. As the hours ticked well past midnight with no precincts reporting the results, allegedly due to a faulty app, President Trump and the Republican Party were handed victory on a silver platter as the nation watched Democrats implode under the weight of gross incompetence.
On Twitter, as the reality began to sink in that Democrats would be coming away empty-handed, Republicans seized the moment to troll their political rivals into oblivion. Not a punch was spared.
&#8220;Somewhere, deep in his richly-appointed underground lair, Michael Bloomberg takes a swig of a 16-ounce Coke, a drag from a cigarette, and smiles while caressing his 12-gauge shotgun. His diabolical plan is working to perfection,&#8221; tweeted Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro.
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Somewhere, deep in his richly-appointed underground lair, Michael Bloomberg takes a swig of a 16-ounce Coke, a drag from a cigarette, and smiles while caressing his 12-gauge shotgun. His diabolical plan is working to perfection.
&mdash; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1224561476167274496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“BREAKING: While Democrats can’t even figure out how to count their votes or use a simple app, [President Trump] has achieved RECORD turnout in the Iowa Caucus for an incumbent president Americans are fired up to re-elect Trump. Meanwhile Democrats are left confused. Incredible,” <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1224546212734390272?s=20">tweeted</a> TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk.
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BREAKING:
While Democrats can&#39;t even figure out how to count their votes or use a simple app<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> has achieved RECORD turnout in the Iowa Caucus for an incumbent president
Americans are fired up to re-elect Trump
Meanwhile Democrats are left confused
Incredible
&mdash; Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1224546212734390272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Well let&#8217;s see, the Democrats screwed an impeachment and now a caucus. Next up: They try to boil water,&#8221; tweeted Ann Coulter.
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Well let&#39;s see, the Democrats screwed an impeachment and now a caucus. Next up: They try to boil water.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucuses?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucuses</a>
&mdash; Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1224546230270820354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;President Trump found a way to win the Democratic Iowa Caucus tonight! The DNC handed it to him — this is the biggest disaster in Iowa Caucus history!!&#8221; tweeted author Brigitte Gabriel.
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President Trump found a way to win the Democratic Iowa Caucus tonight!
The DNC handed it to him — this is the biggest disaster in Iowa Caucus history!!
&mdash; Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) <a href="https://twitter.com/ACTBrigitte/status/1224562194576289792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Democrats proudly let you know last night that they spent the past THREE YEARS preparing for <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucus?src=hashtag_click" data-focusable="true">#IowaCaucus</a> and this <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucusDisaster?src=hashtag_click" data-focusable="true">#IowaCaucusDisaster</a> is what they have to show for all that preparation. You can’t trust the Democrats to run anything well, especially not our healthcare or country,&#8221; tweeted Robby Starbuck. 
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Democrats proudly let you know last night that they spent the past THREE YEARS preparing for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucus</a> and this <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucusDisaster?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucusDisaster</a> is what they have to show for all that preparation. You can’t trust the Democrats to run anything well, especially not our healthcare or country. <a href="https://t.co/A0g9UlFQEq">https://t.co/A0g9UlFQEq</a>
&mdash; Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) <a href="https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1224713173799985152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Biggest story out of last night wasn&#8217;t Dems screwing up their own caucus, it was the low voter turnout. Doesn&#8217;t appear they came close to Obama 2008 levels. Bad omen for Dems. This is what happens when you have one of the least impressive primary fields in Presidential history,&#8221; tweeted Republican strategist Andrew Surabian.
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Biggest story out of last night wasn&#39;t Dems screwing up their own caucus, it was the low voter turnout. Doesn&#39;t appear they came close to Obama 2008 levels. Bad omen for Dems.
This is what happens when you have one of the least impressive primary fields in Presidential history.
&mdash; Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) <a href="https://twitter.com/Surabees/status/1224693858031865861?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;After the debacle in Iowa, WHERE NOT A SINGLE VOTE HAS BEEN REPORTED, it’s abundantly clear that Democrats are the single greatest threat to election security and integrity in this country. Not Trump, not Russia, not Ukraine. Democrats,&#8221; tweeted Federalist co-founder Sean Davis.
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After the debacle in Iowa, WHERE NOT A SINGLE VOTE HAS BEEN REPORTED, it’s abundantly clear that Democrats are the single greatest threat to election security and integrity in this country. Not Trump, not Russia, not Ukraine. Democrats.
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1224659349047578624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Others aptly referred to the night as the Democratic Party&#8217;s own version of the Fyre Festival, which is especially potent in light of the fact that CNN captured on live television a precinct secretary having the phone hung up on them by a local Democratic official as they tried to report the caucus results.
&#8220;Democrats&#8217; Iowa Fyre Fest After nearly 12 hours of waiting for results to come in from the Iowa Democrat caucuses, there’s no way to sugarcoat this: the caucuses are a total and complete disaster for Democrats,&#8221; tweeted GOP Rapid Response Director Steve Guest. 
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Democrats&#39; Iowa Fyre Fest 
After nearly 12 hours of waiting for results to come in from the Iowa Democrat caucuses, there’s no way to sugar coat this: the caucuses are a total and complete disaster for Democrats. <a href="https://t.co/2PQMhyY4cc">https://t.co/2PQMhyY4cc</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZU72LAsuXF">pic.twitter.com/ZU72LAsuXF</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1224698113102950400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Only one person can fix this for Iowa Democrats <a href="https://t.co/ndUMzvk4C8">pic.twitter.com/ndUMzvk4C8</a>
&mdash; Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1224574230018150401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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None other than President Trump and the First Family got in on the troll action.
&#8220;The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is &#8216;Trump,'&#8221; the president tweeted.
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The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224657196392370177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;If the Democrats can’t run a <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/caucus?src=hashtag_click" data-focusable="true">#caucus</a> that they had four years to prepare for, how the hell can anyone think they could actually run the country?&#8221; tweeted Donald Trump Jr. 
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If the Democrats can’t run a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/caucus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#caucus</a> that they had four years to prepare for, how the hell can anyone think they could actually run the country? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IowaCaucuses?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IowaCaucuses</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/iowa?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#iowa</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1224554510665900038?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Bernie Sanders Holds Iowa Caucus Night Event

Republicans Troll Democrats Into Oblivion Over Iowa Caucus Disaster. Here Are The Best Responses.

By dawn on Tuesday, it was clear that the debacle in Iowa was unprecedented.
A perfect storm had rolled in just in time for the state&#8217;s first-in-the-nation vote on the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. A newly, apparently untested app meant to ease communication among precinct chiefs during the caucuses failed completely, with the app designers blaming &#8220;coding issues.&#8221; A failsafe backstop — having precinct chiefs simply phone in the results to the state party headquarters — also failed, with workers being too busy to answer the calls.
The whole mess was a terrible start for Democrats vying to replace President Trump in the White House. Memes immediately exploded across the internet, with one being repeated often: The Democrats want to run the country, but they can&#8217;t even hold a caucus in the cornfields.
For the record, the Republicans also held their caucuses in Iowa on Monday. While they garnered little media coverage, Trump blew out his primary rivals, winning more than 97% of the vote over former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, who each came in with about 1% each.
In many ways, Trump won both caucuses. And he knew it. He took to Twitter early to needle Democrats for their pathetic efforts in Iowa.
&#8220;The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not. I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!&#8221; Trump wrote first thing in the morning.
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The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not. I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224702718754856960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Iowa Democratic Party put out a statement early Tuesday morning saying, &#8220;We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. 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 match.&#8221; Then they added: “This is not a hack or an intrusion.”
That opened another door for Trump, who was investigated for more than two years over charges that he colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, only to be completely exonerated.
&#8220;When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?&#8221; he wrote mockingly first thing in the morning.
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When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224699832901799939?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Trump even defended Iowa. &#8220;It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault. As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!&#8221; he wrote.
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It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault. As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition! <a href="https://t.co/bX3FLvua1C">https://t.co/bX3FLvua1C</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224685852133031936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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And the debacle has only just begun. Already there are allegations that the Democratic Party is somehow trying to derail democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had suddenly risen to the top of the polls. Once the smoke clears, there will be endless charges about the final numbers, with candidates claiming they actually won. The fact that the disastrous app was designed by former campaign officials for Hillary Clinton will only make matters worse.
Which led Trump to type out one more tweet.
&#8220;The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is &#8216;Trump,'&#8221; he wrote.
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The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224657196392370177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
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He sure got that right.

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