IOWA CIRCUS: Mayor Pete Gave A ‘Victory’ Speech Monday — Then Bernie Gave One On Thursday
Two candidates are declaring victory in Iowa for two very different reasons.
It wasn’t exactly the come-from-behind win that Buttigieg was looking for, but he got the praise from the Media(D) anyway, while Bernie got shafted. Again.
On Monday night, Democrat candidates waited and waited for the results of the Iowa caucuses. They kept waiting because the results were delayed for hours. Due to a combination of catastrophic technical errors, complicated caucus rules, the Iowa Democratic Party’s failure to properly train reporting officers, and simple human error, there were no results to report.
Candidates then scrambled to take advantage of the desperate media organizations waiting to report something so they fought for airtime to give a victory speech. Senator Amy Klobuchar(D-MN) was the first one up, but the rest quickly followed suit.
Pete Buttigieg jumped the shark and grabbed the headlines for days after the Iowa caucus fiasco. He gave a rousing speech to his supporters that was jam-packed with factual errors. (More on that later.) But the Media(D) didn’t say boo about those.
It turns out that the lead wasn’t as large as Mayor Pete claimed it was with zero precincts reporting. It’s actually a real nail-biter — with 97% of precincts reporting the Mayor of South Bend holds only a tenth-of a percent lead over Senator Bernie Sanders.
Pete Buttigieg held onto an ever-so-narrow delegate lead in the Iowa caucus results late Wednesday, with 97% of precincts reporting. Buttigieg had 26.2% of State Delegate Equivalents — but Bernie Sanders was close behind with 26.1%. Elizabeth Warren remained in third place with 18.2%, Joe Biden was in fourth with 15.8% and Amy Klobuchar was in fifth with 12.2%.
Source: CBS News
There were allegations that Mayor Pete’s campaign may have put their thumb on the scales in the election because it was revealed that one of Buttigieg’s senior advisors is married to the woman who founded ACRONYM, the parent-company of Shadow Inc. which developed the app that the Iowa Democratic Party used to tabulate the results.
The Associated Press reports:
Shadow Inc. was launched by ACRONYM, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2017 by Tara McGowan, a political strategist who runs companies aimed at promoting Democratic candidates and priorities. McGowan, 34, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, which records show has also paid Shadow Inc. $42,500 for software.
McGowan sought to distance herself from Shadow’s IowaReporterApp on Monday night, characterizing the app developer as an “independent” company. In a separate statement, an ACRONYM spokesman said the nonprofit organization is an investor in several companies, including Shadow, but was “eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”
But business and tax records show ACRONYM and Shadow are registered at the same Washington, D.C., street address, which belongs to a WeWork co-working location. Shadow CEO Gerard Niemira previously served as the chief operating officer and chief technology officer at ACRONYM, according to an online resume.
And on Sunday, McGowan tweeted pictures from a birthday celebration that included her husband and Troy Price, the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party.
McGowan has denied any interference, but try convincing the Bernie Bros of that. Bernie was robbed of the nomination by the DNC in 2016 and it’s going to be difficult to dismiss so many errors that are seemingly always at Bernie’s expense as complete and utter incompetence.
But Mayor Pete went ahead and gave his speech and tried to grab the momentum to propel him forward into New Hampshire.
Since the superior individuals in the Media(D) won’t do it, I guess I will fact-check a couple of choice nuggets from Mayor Pete’s speech.
QUICK FACT-CHECK: When Mayor Pete said, “tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality” there was no data yet released. He had no idea who had won. It was totally deniable because zero precincts had reported at this point. ”
We don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation.” This is actually true. It’s clear everyone was shocked by the absolute cluster*bleep* that Iowa was. “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.” No, actually. You can’t claim victory with zero precincts reporting.
Buttigieg said, “Tonight, Iowa chose a new path.” How can he tell with no results released?
He adds, that his campaign “has room for everyone because no matter who you voted for in elections past. For that matter, no matter who you caucused for tonight, we welcome you in our campaign and you belong in the future that we are building for America.
There’s room for you… unless you happen to be pro-life, because, in that instance, Mayor Pete thinks you shouldn’t be in the Democratic party at all.
But enough about how wrong Mayor Pete is…
It ain’t over, folks. The errors were even worse than imagined.
According to a New York Times analysis, the results were “riddled with errors.”
The results released by the Iowa Democratic Party on Wednesday were riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws. According to a New York Times analysis, more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.
In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.
Some of these inconsistencies may prove to be innocuous, and they do not indicate an intentional effort to compromise or rig the result. There is no apparent bias in favor of the leaders Pete Buttigieg or Bernie Sanders, meaning the overall effect on the winner’s margin may be small.
But not all of the errors are minor, and they raise questions about whether the public will ever get a completely precise account of the Iowa results. With Mr. Sanders closing to within 0.1 percentage points with 97 percent of 1,765 precincts reporting, the race could easily grow close enough for even the most minor errors to delay a final projection or raise doubts about a declared winner.
Source: New York Times
On Wednesday, the New York Post reported that the DNC, frustrated with the “dithering” of Iowa Democratic Party officials, decided to “take over” the accounting of the results of the botched caucuses.
Then, at around noon on Thursday, DNC Chair Tom Perez is calling for a recanvass to ensure the accuracy of the results.
A recanvass is a review of the worksheets from each caucus site to ensure accuracy.
The IDP will continue to report results.
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 6, 2020
A recanvass is essentially a double-checking of the vote. Iowa officials would have to hand audit the caucus worksheets and reporting forms to ensure that they were correctly calculated and reported.
As of Thursday morning, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg was clinging to the narrowest of leads in Iowa over Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Thursday, with 97 percent of the caucus vote released.
Source: NBC News
Late in the afternoon on Thursday, Andrew Yang tweeted that it looked like Bernie had actually won Iowa. It seems that although Buttigieg had been leading in delegates, Bernie had won the popular vote.
It sure looks like Bernie won Iowa. Excited to compete for the win in New Hampshire on Tuesday!
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) February 6, 2020
The complicated rules of awarding delegates may mean that in the end, Buttigieg is awarded more delegates than Bernie even though Mayor Pete loses the popular vote.
Sanders gave his own victory speech on Thursday dismissing the idea that the winner is the one with more state delegates.
“What certainly is not going to change is the fact that in terms of the popular vote, we won a decisive victory,” Sanders said. “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 a victory.”
Sanders acknowledged the final results could end up with Buttigieg being awarded a few more “delegate equivalents” — a traditional measure used to judge the victor of the caucus under its rules. But he said those won’t be a factor when it comes to choosing the nominee, and that both men will have the same number of delegates at the Democratic convention in the summer.
Source: Los Angeles Times
When asked about it after his address, he said that as far as he’s concerned, the person with the most votes wins.
Question: Mayor Pete's been declaring a win for days now, why should people believe your victory speech over his?
Bernie: Because I got 6,000 more votes, and from where I come from when you get 6,000 more votes that's generally regarded to be the winner #IowaCaucus #NotMeUs pic.twitter.com/Ts6lgS9G4d
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) February 6, 2020
It looks like the gloves are off and the race to see who is going to be humiliated by President Trump in November is about to get interesting.
