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.”

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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.”

It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault. As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition! https://t.co/bX3FLvua1C — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020

“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.