'It Makes Iowa Look Bad': Chaos Persists As Democratic Party Awaits Complete Results Of Iowa Caucuses
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Nearly a day later, chaos persists as the complete results from the Iowa caucuses have yet to be reported after several complications.
We have been talking to Iowans about this year's problems and we saw some of it for ourselves last night.
A new application for reporting caucus results is getting a lot of the blame - but so too are a new set of caucus rules. For the first time Iowas 1700 caucuses had to report not one, but three sets of results, the first vote tally, the final vote tally and the delegate allocation.
Those new rules also created problems at other caucuses. A couple from Brooklyn Center were Klobuchar volunteers who were at a caucus in Marshall.
"They did several recounts. We had 151 delegates there, but some of these caucuses, they had 800 or 900 delegates there, and I am sure the same kinds of problems were going on," Klobuchar volunteers Suzanne Perry and Jerry Gale said.
We went to a coffee shop and found Elizabeth Warren supporters upset and disappointed.
"It makes Iowa look bad," Anna O'Shea said. "It's going to be difficult for Iowa to stay as the first caucus."
"The caucus chairs did get training on the application they were told to use, so it was really a breakdown," Victoria Blake said.
It's unclear how much these caucuses will help Senator Amy Klobuchar - despite the uncertainty she was upbeat.
"Let's stay up, let's stay happy, and lets head to New Hampshire, thank you Iowa," Klobuchar said to a loud crowd of supporters.
The famed bounce out of Iowa may not happen for any candidate this year.
Partial caucus results were released Tuesday afternoon; but they only come from Des Moines and surrounding areas, meaning they do not include the more out state and rural areas where Senator Klobuchar is expected to do well.
What these results make clear is that this is a five person race. Some of Amy's strongest counties haven't been fully reported and the current data doesn't tell the full story. We're in a virtual tie with VP Biden and we look forward to making our case in New Hampshire.
— Justin Buoen (@jbuoen) February 4, 2020
Senator Klobuchar is now already in New Hampshire – where their primary is a week from today.
With all the chaos, major questions will linger about the final results - whatever they turn out to be.