Candidates Move On To N.H., With No Results Yet In Sight In Iowa
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Democratic presidential candidates are on to New Hampshire, though as of yet no one knows who won the Iowa caucuses yet. Major problems with vote counting have delayed caucus results.
The Iowa Democratic Party says they will release the numbers later Tuesday. They blamed the delays on redundancies in vote totals. Problems with a mobile app appear to be one of the main issues.
Iowa is used as a first-in-the-nation benchmark of how the election could go, and for the state's Democrats, this was not the way to start. The party said both the new app used to relay caucus results to the party failed, and the back-up phone reporting system also failed.
One of those failures happened on live television. CNN was interviewing an Iowa precinct secretary last night over the phone. That secretary explained how he was on hold with the party for more than an hour after he couldn't submit results via app. Then, an operator came on, followed by nothing. He was hung up on.
The party says the problems were statewide, as they hand-check results.
Meanwhile for candidates, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, it's on to the next one in New Hampshire. Klobuchar arrived in the state just before 4 a.m. there.
"It became clear to me after a while that maybe we weren't going to get the numbers, so then I thought well maybe we'll go out and make the best of the situation," Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar was the first of the Democratic candidates who seized on the opportunity the delay in results afforded, and gave a speech to supporters before anyone else, which was carried live on news networks right in the middle of prime time.
President Donald Trump won the Republican caucuses with 97% percent of the votes. He did not face any significant opposition.
Iowa typically doesn't hold a caucus with an incumbent in the White House, but went through the process to maintain its status as the first in the nation.
