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Everyone's a winner! Bernie Sanders claims victory in Iowa Caucuses despite losing to Pete Buttigieg

The results of the Iowa caucuses came days after the voting took place. All the candidates claimed their own victory on the caucus night. Sanders said he won because he led in terms of popular vote.
PUBLISHED FEB 7, 2020
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University on January 14, 2020 in Iowa. (Getty)
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University on January 14, 2020 in Iowa. (Getty)

The Democrats have been flying through some serious turbulence this week. On Monday, February 3, the Iowa Caucuses failed to reach a conclusion to the frustration of party supporters and the amusement of Republicans. On Tuesday, February 4, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up pages of the copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech. The next day, February 5, Trump was acquitted by the Senate in the impeachment trial.

With just four days to go till the next big battle -- the New Hampshire Primary -- the Democrats need to put their house on order as fast as they can, but it seems the chaos of Iowa will leave a shadow longer than expected. On Thursday night, the full results of the Iowa Caucuses came out and showed former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg finishing at the top but his gap to the next best -- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders -- is thinner than the wafer. While Buttigieg finished with 26.2 per cent of the votes, Sanders ended with 26.1 per cent. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren finished at 18 per cent followed by former vice-president Joe Biden (15.8 per cent) and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (12.3 per cent). Entrepreneur Andrew Yang got a paltry one per cent vote.

On Thursday, Sanders declared himself the winner of the caucuses, pointing to his lead of about 6,000 votes in the popular vote. At a press conference in Manchester, New Hampshire, Sanders said: “We here in northern new England call that a victory”.

According to the Associated Press, Sanders got 45,826 votes as against Buttigieg’s 43,195 after 100 per cent of the precincts reported. On Thursday, the wire service could not confirm Sanders’ claims and the actual winner of the troubled caucuses. 

In 2016 Iowa Caucuses too, Sanders lost narrowly to Hillary

Sanders, who lost to Hillary Clinton by a similar incredibly thin margin in Iowa in the 2016 caucuses, did not seem bothered by the gap between him and Buttigieg in terms of delegate equivalents -- the aspect that everyone is focusing on.

“These state delegate equivalents have greatly diminished importance from past caucuses,” the 78-year-old said. When asked why people should believe his victory claim over Buttigieg's, Sanders said it was because he got 6,000 more votes. The veteran was also disappointed with the complex nature of the Iowa Caucuses saying if he gets to do anything with it he would change it by the time the next election arrives. According to Sanders who claimed on caucus night that it marked the beginning of the end of Trump, the Iowa “screw-up” was not fair for the people of the state. 

Democratic presidential candidate South Bend Pete Buttigieg makes a campaign stop at the Ed and Betty Wilcox Performing Arts Centeron January 16, 2020 in Algona, Iowa. (Getty)

Sanders also shrugged off rival Joe Biden’s claim that Trump was trying to label him a “socialist” and that could weaken him in the November election. When the Daily Mail asked him about it, Sanders addressed Biden to say that they were dealing with somebody like Trump who “lies all the time” and “will pin any label that he wants on any candidate”. He said it didn’t matter as they all were striving towards exposing Trump.

Buttigieg, 38, who also claimed victory on caucus night, did not react to Sanders’s address and made only a brief mention of Iowa in New Hampshire, saying: “New Hampshire is not the kind of place to let Iowa or anybody else tell you what to do.” Later, as the final results came out, Buttigieg told an interviewer: "We won!"

Sanders, as in 2016, did not seek a recount and said he wanted to move on from the debacle. 

Enough is enough, DNC chief says on Iowa

Meanwhile, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez asked the party’s Iowa chapter to recanvass its caucus, tweeting Thursday “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," he said.

An app malfunction left the Iowa Caucuses in chaos on Monday night, bringing down Democrats' wrath.

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