DES MOINES, Iowa _ Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders lead in the partial Iowa caucus results that the state Democratic party released Tuesday afternoon, nearly a full day after the Hawkeye state held the first presidential nominating contest in the nation.
Buttigieg won 27% of the delegates and Sanders won 25%; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden trailed with 18% and 16%, respectively.
The partial count is unlikely to quell the furor over the tabulation problems that prevented the party from releasing results after the caucuses concluded Monday evening, nor a growing drumbeat about whether Iowa should remain the first state to weigh in on the presidential contest.
These criticisms were compounded by the party deciding to release 62% of the results, so it's unclear if these results will hold up once all of the precincts are tallied. The party did not say when a full accounting would be finished.
Various candidates used the disarray to their political advantage, claiming victories despite _ or perhaps owing to _ the lack of a definitive outcome.
Buttigieg, who delivered a forceful victory speech Monday night before leaving Iowa for New Hampshire, said his confident posture was based on internal campaign data.
"We're waiting for the official information to come in," the former mayor said on CNN, "but by any reckoning, we had an extraordinary night that is propelling us for a win in New Hampshire" in the state's Feb. 11 primary.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire political activist, could hardly suppress a broad grin on MSNBC even as he acknowledged that "the system had a very bad night last night." He declared the race had cracked "wide open."
Aides to the national front-runner, Biden, cautioned against over-interpreting the incomplete data put out by rival campaigns. "The fact of the matter is, we don't have the official data and it's not verified," deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said on MSNBC.
Iowa's first-in-the-nation nominating contest was badly marred by reporting mishaps centered on a computer application intended to help tally the results of its statewide caucuses. State party officials defended the delay, saying a correct count was their primary concern.
"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," said Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price.
The delay generated consternation among Democratic candidates, gloating from President Donald Trump, a burst of conspiracy theories on social media and concerns about whether there could be a repeat in the Nevada caucuses, which follow the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 22.
Nevada's Democratic Party chairman vowed the mishap would not be repeated.
"We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus," William McCurdy II said. "We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward."
Under new rules adopted under pressure from Bernie Sanders and his supporters after his narrow Iowa loss in 2016, state party officials were supposed to report three different sets of numbers. Those were a count of how many people supported each candidate initially, how many supported each candidate once lagging candidates were dropped and voters realigned, and the number of delegates each candidate netted.
Ensuring that all three sets of figures were correct appears to have been a significant problem.
Unlike primary elections, which are run by government officials, the Iowa caucuses are staffed by thousands of volunteers, many of them retirees, recruited by the state parties. The new, more complex reporting system appeared to overwhelm volunteers. The cellphone service required to use the app is also spotty in rural swaths of the state.
John Grennan, co-chair of the Poweshiek County Democrats, said opportunities to train on the app did not bode well.
"They had all these issues," Grennan said. "We were supposed to be getting invitations to use it. The invites would never arrive."
The communications Grennan did receive were confusing, he said.
William Baresel, the Democratic chair in Floyd County in the eastern part of the state, had three precincts unable to report their results to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters and said he spent an hour on hold with the party officials before he was able to report his results. "Once we got through, everything was fine," Baresel said.
One caucus chair in Floyd County had few problems reporting the results by phone earlier in the night _ because she didn't even try to use the app.
The chaos in reporting results could threaten Iowa's much-coveted first-in-the-nation status, which has come under growing scrutiny in recent presidential elections.
In 2012, Republicans wrongly crowned Mitt Romney the victor on caucus night. More than two weeks later, state GOP officials announced that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had actually won, but at that point, Romney was riding the momentum from his Iowa win toward the party's nomination.
Four years later, Democratic Party leaders were unable to track down tallies in several precincts, meaning they could not officially name Hillary Clinton the winner until more than half a day after the caucuses ended.
National Republicans and Trump took glee in the problem.
"The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country," Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
Iowa Republicans, however, defended the caucus system, which brings enormous political and economic benefit to the state. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sens. Charles E. Grassley and Joni Ernst issued a joint statement saying that the retail politicking that the caucuses require empowers voters and cannot be replicated elsewhere.
"The process is not suffering because of a short delay in knowing the final results," the trio said. "Iowans and all Americans should know we have complete confidence that every last vote will be counted and every last voice will be heard."
