Iowa Caucus Results: Which Democrats Lead Out

The youngest and oldest candidate for the presidency of the United States from the Democratic Party - Pete Buttidzhich and Bernie Sanders led the race for the nomination for participation in the 2020 elections. Writes about it with the BBC.

Фото: Depositphotos

Sanders, 78, is a U.S. senator from Vermont. Buttijic, 38, is a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Their leadership was determined after the first caucus held in Iowa on Monday. Caucus in the United States refers to meetings at which party members discuss candidates for the presidential race and hold open ballots.

The first vote in Iowa was marked by a number of technical problems.

Democrats say “inconsistencies” were discovered during the vote count, although the party insists the unprecedented delay in counting votes was not the result of a computer hack. As a result, the caucus organizers were unable to publish the voting results on time.

In the absence of official data, candidates tried to put forward their own versions of the voting results. The campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, citing “their own data,” immediately announced the success of their candidates in Iowa.

Buttigic, a Harvard and Oxford graduate, naval officer, six-language polyglot, is very popular among the democratic establishment, and Sanders, a veteran of American politics, is very ill-disposed of.

What margin won

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigic preserves a tiny advantage over left-handed rival Bernie Sanders based on the results of the Iowa caucuses, which opened the season for the selection of applicants, writes "Voice of America".

After 97% of the polls reported the vote in Iowa, 38-year-old Buttijic, the former mayor of South Bend in Indiana, leads with 26,2%.

Senator Sanders, who is two times older than Buttigic and the second time trying to achieve a nomination, steps on his heels with 26,1%.

Sanders' colleague, progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren received 18,7% of the vote, and former vice president Joe Biden, the race's favorite according to nationwide polls, came in fourth with 15,8%.

Why is this happening

The leadership of the Democratic Party has been wringing its hands in despair over the past few days in anticipation of a sad scenario in which Bernie Sanders announces his confident victory at the Iowa focus. However, reality seemed to give them a worse surprise.

Three years after the Democratic Party's servers were allegedly hacked by Russian hackers in an attempt to alter the 2016 presidential election, "technical glitches" have disrupted the announcement of the Iowa caucus result.

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The Democratic Party, and indeed American democracy as a whole, appeared in a very unfavorable light.

The confusion will give rise to a thousand new conspiracy theories and add chaos to the candidate race, which, after a year of election efforts, would not hurt clarity.

What's wrong with Bernie Sanders

As Guardian writes in an editorial note, even in a dilapidated democracy (as the newspaper describes the United States), the rich should not be in power, because mathematics itself is against them. After all, the rich are few, and the rest are many. And in a bipartisan system, when one party represents the rich, and the other represents the rest, it would be logical for the party of the rich to always be the loser.

However, this does not actually happen. Republicans control the White House, the courts, most state legislatures, and half of Congress.

And democrats, instead of betting on their overwhelming demographic advantage in this potential class struggle between the poor and the rich, are in no hurry to take advantage of it.

And here comes Bernie Sanders, who, if appointed as a Democratic candidate, promises to make this potential class battle a reality. And then his real obstacle to the White House will be not the candidate from the Republicans, but the establishment of his own party. After all, Sanders is an existential threat to their traditional approach to the formation of views on morality.

Associated with this are the Democrats' fears that Sanders can really win, so they like to remind them that Bernie is not a Democrat at all.

In fact, Bernie Sanders has been an independent congressman for many years, and the fact that he gained political weight without the help of the party angers and annoys those who have sacrificed ideals to play by the rules of big politics.

Why Iowa is Important

At stake is the November presidential election and rivalry with Republican Donald Trump, the current president of the country.

Iowa is a sparsely populated, predominantly agricultural state, and yet Iowa and New Hampshire are the first to participate in the presidential campaign, conducting focuses and primaries.

It is believed that their result is of great importance, informally setting the trend for all other states. American politicians know that Iowa caucuses can greatly boost the ratings of some candidates, and others - deprive any hope of victory, so carefully prepare for them.

The last four candidates from the Democratic Party were just the victors at the Iowa caucuses.

Counting failure: a technical matter or hackers?

According to Iowa Democratic Party spokeswoman Mandy McClure, the technical problems in Iowa, namely the discrepancies found in the results of the three rounds, are only a “procedural hitch” and not an attempt at hacking or outside interference.

McClure also denied breaking an electronic application specifically designed for such a vote count.

“All the accompanying data and paper documents are not in doubt, it will just take additional time to announce the final results,” she explained.

“We compare all electronic data with paper copies,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price. “This scoring system takes more time, but it ensures that we can announce the results with complete confidence.”

This year, the rules for announcing results have been changed. Iowa must pass the results for all three rounds to the party’s headquarters, not just the final numbers.

McClure's statement contradicts allegations by party officials at the district level who consider this a technical problem.

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According to them, the very specially developed application for counting votes failed, after which the heads of district precincts began calling the headquarters. However, it was impossible to reach the party's hotline in Iowa: callers heard the same message: “all our operators are busy right now.”

How did the Republicans react

Republicans gloated. Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said that "Democrats are stewing in a mess of their own making, suffering the most careless disaster in their history."

“It would be natural for people to question the fairness of the process,” he added.

But Republicans had previously had problems with Iowa.

In 2012, Mitt Romney was declared the winner of the caucus, and two weeks later the party announced that Rick Santorum had actually won.

Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., Twittered, asking, "If Democrats can't hold the caucuses they've spent four years preparing for, why the hell does anyone think they can run the country?"

A bit later, a post on Twitter by US President Donald Trump appeared.

“The Democratic caucuses have been a disaster. Nothing works, just like when they ran the country,” Trump wrote.

What's next

On February 11, primaries will be held in New Hampshire, then, also in February, in Nevada and South Carolina.

On Tuesday March 3, voting will take place immediately in 15 states.

The names of candidates for the presidential race will be announced in Wisconsin in July.

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