Approximately 24 hours after the Iowa caucuses began, we finally know who did well and who didn’t. Pete Buttigieg did well. With about two-thirds of the vote counted, he leads with 27 percent.
Bernie Sanders did pretty well. He’s second to Buttigieg at 25 percent.
Sanders apparently turned out significantly more caucus-goers than Buttigieg did. But the former mayor picked up significantly more support in the second round of caucusing, after supporters of candidates who fell short of 15 percent at various polling places moved on to a second choice candidate.
In primaries, Buttigieg won’t be able to receive that kind of bounce. On the other hand, most of the primaries aren’t in states where Democrats are as radically leftist as in Iowa.
Joe Biden did horribly. He’s in fourth place at about 15 percent. It’s shocking, but maybe not too surprising that Biden, the alleged frontrunner, did so poorly.
Heading into the caucuses, polls showed Biden at 20 percent. The polls were probably accurate. The problem likely was that Biden created so little enthusiasm among his supporters that a significant portion of them didn’t show up for the caucuses. And that’s no malarkey.
Elizabeth Warren had a mediocre night, at best. Running nearly 10 points behind Buttigieg is far from impressive.
Warren’s third place finish, with about 18 percent of the vote (at this stage of the counting) keeps her in the mix for the nomination. However, she will need a better showing in New Hampshire to remain viable.
Amy Klobuchar isn’t in the mix. She needed to do better than fifth place and 12 percent to get that “ticket out of Iowa.” She does plan to move on to New Hampshire, but will do so as a no-hoper. Getting less than half of Buttigieg’s count in her neighboring state didn’t cut it.
With about one-third of the vote still out, inexcusably, it’s possible that there will be changes in the totals worth noting. If so, we will update this post or, if the results don’t become final soon, update things in a separate post.
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