Dem candidates snipe at each other and Iowa officials as they await results

The Democratic candidates unleashed another round of sniping at each other and at the Iowa Democratic Party after officials announced a plan to release some — but not all — of the Iowa caucus results later Tuesday afternoon.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price informed the campaigns Tuesday afternoon that the state party plans to release at least half of the results by 5 p.m. Eastern time, providing some clarity after technical snafus plunged the contest into chaos.

“Moving forward — just like we would would have on caucus night — we will continue to release results as we are able to,” Mandy McClure, the state Democratic Party’s communications director, said in a follow-up statement. “We are also executing our plans and procedures to gather the paper documents and chasing any additional precincts to report results as we normally would on caucus night.”

But the candidates and their aides balked at the idea of only getting a partial picture of the outcome and engaged in a blame game over the persisting delays.

On the call, a Bernie Sanders aide took a swipe at Joe Biden, suggesting his campaign is responsible for holding up an already slow process to postpone the release of a weak finish for the former vice president.

“I do want to urge people in the interest of not discrediting the party, that folks who are just trying to delay the return of this because of their relative positioning in the results last night, I think that’s a bit disingenuous,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior adviser, said on the call.

Biden general counsel Dana Remus tried to cast doubt over the the entire caucus, referencing “growing reports” that people’s presidential preference cards were not accepted, while senior adviser Jessie Harris was incredulous that the state party would only release partial results.

“I appreciate that you have a process that you feel good about, but you need to allow enough transparency that other people can feel good about it as well, but we’re just not there,” Remus told Price.

“Fifty percent is not adequate,” Harris said. “This is a 99-county campaign. That’s not the total picture of what happened yesterday.”

“We will continue to work through the process of going through quality control,” Price replied. But when, Harris asked: “Today? Tomorrow? A week? A month?”

“We’re continuing to work through the process,” Price responded. “Just as soon as we can.”

Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, unloaded to reporters in New Hampshire about the lack of clarity as to when full results will be released. “I think they ought to get it together and release all the data," Warren said.

Biden, who is facing the prospect of a dismal showing in the official results, took a different tack, urging supporters in Nashua, New Hampshire, to give Iowa Democrats “time to work out the issues, because a lot depends on it.”

Even before campaigns were given any significant guidance on timing of results, the candidates were taking divergent approaches to the turmoil of the Iowa caucuses.

Pete Buttigieg blitzed the morning shows, plowing ahead with his claims of victory. Biden announced a new batch of endorsements and dispatched his senior aides to sow doubt about the integrity of the process and pan campaigns that painted incomplete portraits of the results by releasing early internal data.

Warren’s campaign pledged to help “ensure the integrity of their process.” And after releasing his campaign’s unverified internal data shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday, Sanders’ team was radio silent for much of the morning.

Polls showed a close race heading into Monday’s caucuses, but no campaigns left the first-in-the-nation caucus state with their ticket punched to New Hampshire. The massive unexpected void left Democratic candidates to spin their private data and the chaos of the process to their own benefit, unchallenged by any official results that could determine who won the state and who enters New Hampshire with a sudden burst of momentum.

“It was an extraordinary night, and we are absolutely victorious coming into New Hampshire,” Buttigieg claimed in an interview on “CBS This Morning.” His campaign shared its unverified internal data from more than 1,200 precincts earlier Tuesday.

“We have the results from our organization, and if you look at what we were able to do, what happened last night, the fact that this campaign was able to gather support in urban, suburban and rural areas alike, in counties that Hillary Clinton won, counties that Donald Trump won, we are thrilled and absolutely consider that a victory,” he added.

Not so fast, Biden’s senior aides cautioned. “We have zero official data from the Iowa Democratic Party at this point,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, said on CNN’s “New Day.” “There are serious questions about the process and during this time where we have no official verified information from the Iowa Democratic Party, we have, you know, campaigns putting out incomplete data that doesn’t paint a full picture.”

“Any campaign claiming victory is doing so inaccurately, and it’s just irresponsible,” Symone Sanders, Biden’s senior adviser, said later on CNN. “The reality is that a winner out of any of these primary and caucus states is determined by state delegate equivalents, and we don’t have any state delegate equivalents because the Democratic Party hasn’t reported anything.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a longshot who entered the primary late, seized on the spat between the Buttigieg and Biden camps, likening both candidates to President Donald Trump.

“One candidate is calling the results into question because he apparently didn’t do well. Another is declaring victory without any votes being confirmed,” Patrick said in a statement. “The way to beat Donald Trump isn’t to act like Donald Trump. Our party and our country deserve better.”

Sanders’ campaign, eager to challenge Buttigieg’s claims of a decisive victory, released unverified internal data from about 40 percent of precincts after 1 a.m. Tuesday showing the Vermont senator leading the caucuses.

Late Tuesday morning, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in an email to supporters that internal results with almost 50 percent of precincts in show the Vermont senator with “a comfortable lead.”

“Last night was a bad night for democracy, for the Democratic Party, for the people of Iowa,” Shakir said. “But we need your help to win in New Hampshire, and Bernie cannot do it alone.”

“Obviously I am disappointed,” Sanders later told reporters aboard a charter plane. “I suspect I can speak for all the candidates, all of their supporters and the people of Iowa. That the Iowa Democratic Party has not been able to come up with timely election results, can’t understand why that happens, but it has happened.”

Warren campaign manager Roger Lau noted their “campaign collected photos and other raw documentation of the results at hundreds of caucus locations as part of our internal reporting process.”

“Today we will provide what we have to the Iowa Democratic Party to help ensure the integrity of their process,” he tweeted.

Echoing that message, Warren added: “Yesterday we competed, but today we owe it to everyone who caucused in Iowa, and everyone who supports any of the candidates, to show that their voices and hard work count. Our party and our country need more people engaged in the critical mission of defeating Donald Trump.”

Issues reporting the results across the state deprived the frontrunners of morning headlines declaring an official winner and denied candidates clear momentum — and a potential fundraising boost — heading into New Hampshire, which holds its first-in-the-nation primary next Tuesday.

Precinct caucus chairs had said they were having issues using the mobile application designed to report vote totals. The state party had planned to release three sets of data for the first time: the first alignment, the realignment reflecting voters’ final preferences, and state delegate equivalents.

The technical meltdown follows the scrapped release of the gold-standard Des Moines Register poll over the weekend. The Register and its media partners pulled the planned release of the survey Saturday, after Buttigieg’s campaign raised concerns about an interview that left out the former South Bend mayor.

The poll, which has often demonstrated late momentum for a candidate in each caucus year, had correctly predicted the winner of the Democratic caucuses dating back to 1988. Other late Iowa polls showed Sanders and Biden alternating leads in different surveys with a closely bunched top four, meaning there was no clear frontrunner heading into Monday.

Oddly enough, the same was true on Tuesday as campaigns impatiently waited for the official results.

In a statement released after 9 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, the Iowa Democratic Party said “there were inconsistencies” with reports from precincts that required an investigation, and the backup measures that were implemented “took longer than expected.”

“Precinct level results are still being reported to the IDP,” said Price, the Iowa Democratic Party chairman. “While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld.”

“It’s safe to say nobody’s more impatient than I am given how fantastic everything we’ve seen was coming out of last night,” Buttigieg said of the delay. “But what we do know is that there is a paper trail, that they’ll be verifying this based on paper, and given whatever happened technically, that’s good news.”

The delay means the results will likely have an even shorter shelf life in the news cycle, given that coverage has centered on the chaos that occurred in Iowa, potentially jeopardizing its first-in-the-nation status, and Trump will deliver his State of the Union address to the nation Tuesday night and will likely be acquitted by the Republican-led Senate in its impeachment trial on Wednesday.

Democrats, most of whom have already traveled to New Hampshire, will debate there on Friday.

David Yepsen, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter, said Monday marked “the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event.”

“The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa’s goose. Frankly, it should,” he said. “I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”

Other Democratic parties in early states quickly distanced themselves from their Iowa counterpart, warning that their primary and caucuses won’t be a repeat of Monday night.

The Nevada Democratic Party said “confidently … that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada on February 22nd,” adding that it won’t employ the same app or vendor Iowa Democrats used. South Carolina’s Democratic Party expressed “confidence in our voting system and the professionals who run the South Carolina Election Commission.”

But Trump and Iowa Republicans raced to defend its first-in-the-nation status. Trump tweeted that Iowa Democrats are at fault and pledged that “Iowa will stay where it is” as long as he is president. And in a joint statement, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst praised Iowa’s role while downplaying what they termed “a short delay.”

“The process is not suffering because of a short delay in knowing the final results,” they said. “Iowans and all Americans should know we have complete confidence that every last vote will be counted and every last voice will be heard. “We look forward to Iowa carrying on its bipartisan legacy of service in the presidential nominating process.”

At her first event in New Hampshire, Warren said three campaigns “will be dividing up most of the delegates coming out of Iowa.”

“I’m feeling good!” she said in Keene.

Amy Klobuchar said that though her campaign is still waiting for the results, “I can tell you that we feel very good about where we are, and we won so many precincts and delegates that I don’t think people gave us a chance to win.”

“It had this grassroots feeling that New Hampshire would be proud about,” she said in Concord.

Andrew Yang tweeted that the “race is a muddled mess” now.

“That means the opportunity for us is growing because there isn’t a clear front runner or even field,” he said. “New Hampshire will be more important than ever.”

Alex Thompson, Holly Otterbein, Marc Caputo, Stephanie Murray and Myah Ward contributed to this report.