Associated Press ‘unable to declare’ an Iowa caucus winner
DNC chair slams Iowa, calls for re-canvassing of votes
DNC Chair Tom Perez is not satisfied with the process of the Iowa Caucuses. Reaction on ‘The Five.’
The Associated Press on Thursday said it is unable to declare a winner in Iowa’s Democratic caucus — although both Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg declared victory in the election that took place three days earlier.
Despite 97 precincts reporting results from the caucus, the news agency reported that it will not call a victor, as Buttigieg currently leads Sanders by three state delegate equivalents out of 2,098 counted — or a margin of 0.14 percentage points. At the same time, Sanders, at this point, leads Buttigieg in the raw vote count.
“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 Sally Buzbee, The AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
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The hesitancy to declare a winner comes shortly after Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez asked the Iowa Democratic Party to conduct a recanvass. That is not a recount, but rather a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly.
Perez sought the recanvass following days of uncertainty about the results reported by the Iowa Democratic Party, which included technology problems with the mobile phone app used by the party to collect results from caucus sites, an overwhelming number of calls to the party’s backup phone system and a subsequent delay of several days of reporting the results.
The Iowa Democratic Party suggested it may not comply with Perez’s request, issuing a statement that said it would conduct a recanvass if one was requested by one of the candidates.
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.
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Despite no clear winner yet, Sanders and Buttigieg have both been campaigning in New Hampshire as if they took Iowa.
Speaking to reporters Thursday at a news conference at his campaign headquarters in New Hampshire, Sanders thanked Iowans “for the very strong victory they gave us at the Iowa caucuses on Monday night.”
“Even though the vote tabulations have been extremely slow, we are now at a point with some 97 percent of the precincts reporting, where our campaign is winning the popular initial vote by some 6,000 votes,» Sanders said.
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«In other words, some 6,000 more Iowans came out on caucus night to support our candidacy than the candidacy of anyone else. And when 6,000 more people come out for you in an election than your nearest opponent, we here in northern New England call that victory,» he added.
Sanders’ declaration of victory comes three nights after Buttigieg also declared victory, pointing to his lead in delegates won through the caucuses.
“We don’t know the results. But we know, by the time it’s all said and done, you have shocked the nation,” the former South Bend, Ind., mayor told his supporters Monday night in Iowa. “Because, by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Andrew Craft contributed to this report, as well as The Associated Press.
