The Democrat Iowa Caucus Is in Total Chaos, Here Are the Details

If you didn’t stay up to try to see the results of last night’s Democrat Iowa Caucus, you saved yourself a lot of wasted time.

As I type this the next morning, there are still no official results. Early reports did show three things and you can make of them what you will. Bernie Sanders was poised to win, Joe Biden was looking like a distant 4th place, and turnout was much lower than expected.

That’s when the weirdness started.

“…quality control procedures” https://t.co/y4ftAL1L7H

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) February 4, 2020

Then, as precincts tried to report their results, one precinct secretary was hung up on after being on hold for over an hour. Three and four hour hold times were apparently happening throughout the early morning hours.

An Iowa precinct secretary was just on the phone with CNN, got off hold with the Iowa Democratic Party to report his results, and was hung up on.

That is a thing that just occurred on national television. #IACaucus pic.twitter.com/NEK6ozMwoa

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) February 4, 2020

Just how crazy have things gotten? This crazy.

MORE: Polk County precinct chairs are being advised to take pictures of the results and text them over to the Polk County executive director, who is driving them to the HQ, according to a Democratic operative familiar with the situation

— Elena Schneider (@ec_schneider) February 4, 2020

Just an hour ago, I saw a report that the Iowa Democratic party was sending out door knockers to try to get results from unreported precinct leaders. This thing has devolved into complete pandemonium.

And if the vote-counting process issues weren’t enough, you also get the typical idiocy of the caucus system showing its ugly face.

So Sanders had more than twice as much support as any other candidate at this precinct, but due to some savvy dealmaking and complicated delegate math, they ended up in a 5-way tie for delegates, one apiece. And they were not happy. https://t.co/dBNmilhFTY

— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) February 4, 2020

There’s certainly some irony there, as Sanders is an avowed socialist who you’d think would be all for redistribution of resources. I guess not so much when it affects their ability to win an election. But these are the people who want to run the country. They can’t even report the results of a caucus properly (by contrast, the GOP got their results fairly early last night) but think they can manage healthcare for almost 400 million people. Makes sense.

And just in case you doubted who Democrats will try to blame for this hilarious mess, here you go.

The two guys happiest with the Iowa results are Donald Trump and his pal Vladimir Putin. Please don't subscribe to conspiracy theories launched by either one of them. Simple human incompetence is almost always the right explanation.

— Richard Stengel (@stengel) February 4, 2020

This has been a total disaster for the Democrats. After CNN booted it’s DMR “gold standard” poll of Iowa, it was leaked that Sanders was leading. Now the results themselves are being heavily delayed, denying the actual winner (who appears to be Sanders) a chance to gain momentum off the results. Perhaps that’s all a coincidence, but it’s a pretty convenient one for a Democrat establishment that is scrambling. Even if it is all just incompetence, Sanders’ supporters are fuming mad right now, and if he’s not the nominee, it could factor into costing Democrats the general election.

One thing is clear, though, even in the absence of the final results. Joe Biden utterly imploded last night and is on his way to losing the first three primary states.