The Iowa Caucuses took place Mon., Feb. 3, but have not had the same catalyzing effect on the presidential race that they have had in past election cycles. That’s because, remarkably, Iowa Democrats were unable to announce an actual winner Monday evening.
In fact, only now, two days later, are we getting what appear to be final, clarifying results.
Iowa Democrats blame the delay on “inconsistencies” in the reporting of election data, and insist that the online app they developed for the caucuses was not hacked or compromised.
Maybe, but their failure to launch, so to speak, has invited understandable skepticism and snark. National Review editor Rich Lowry, for instance, wryly observed that “after years of obsession with the Russians, the Democrats somehow managed to hack their own election.”
“Cybersecurity experts,” reports the New York Times, “said that the app had not been properly tested at scale, and that it was hastily put together over the past two months…
“This is an urgent reminder of why online voting is not ready for prime time,” J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, told the Times.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale gleefully piled on: “Democrats,” he said
are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?
This lack of clarity and confusion allowed all of the Democratic Party candidates—Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and and even Andrew Yang—to give what essentially were victory speeches Monday evening.
After all, if it can’t be shown that you lost, then you might as well say you won, while vowing to fight on to New Hampshire! And indeed, that’s pretty much what all of the Democratic presidential candidates did.
But, as the Times notes, the award for real chutzpah has got to go to Buttigieg:
“What a night!” he yelled to a mass of cheering supporters late Monday, declaring—with zero percent of precincts officially reporting—that “by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”
“Because tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality.”
In truth, that reality was very much deniable…
“So we don’t know all the results,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “But we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation.”
Well, that much is certainly true, albeit probably not in the way Buttigieg meant it.
As it turns out, Buttigieg wasn’t blowing smoke. He and Sanders are in a virtual tie for first place in Iowa. However, their momentum has been dampened and blunted by the delayed reporting of the results.
The Biggest Loser. What was clear Monday night, and is even clearer today, is that Biden is the big and perhaps irreparable loser in Iowa. He finished fourth, well behind Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren, and not much higher than Klobuchar.
“His poor performance in Iowa this year reflected the ways in which Biden is bad at winning elections,” argues Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner.
He was in first or second place in all statewide polls. That makes sense, given his high name recognition. Yet despite this advantage, Biden was out-fundraised by Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg. Biden was clearly out-organized, too, as the caucuses showed.
“Biden had every advantage in Iowa,” adds Quin Hillyer. “If he couldn’t make Iowa at least close, he evinces a politically hollow campaign.”
Indeed, polls show that Biden may also lose next week’s New Hampshire primary and is poised to win only in South Carolina and Alabama. Sanders, meanwhile, appears to be the frontrunner in most other states.
That would mean Buttigieg and Warren are Sanders’ only real opponents. But despite being slick and brainy, Buttigieg’s only real accomplishment in public life has been to serve as mayor of a small city (South Bend, Indiana) that most people have never heard of, and for good reason.
Warren, meanwhile, is fading in the polls and is hardly a plausible moderate alternative to Sanders. Instead, she occupies much of the same political space (on the far left wing of the Democratic Party) as Sanders.
All of which is to say: get ready for Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nominee, but this time largely in spite of Iowa, not because of it.
Feature photo credit: Google News.