Democrats had hoped the Iowa caucuses would begin to sort out a chaotic primary field, identifying clear frontrunners. Instead, Iowa was a disaster. As a mobile app meant to help steer organizers through the caucus turned out to be defective, the contest fell into confusion.

As the extent of the disaster became clear, party leaders and campaign chiefs began to look to the next contest, the New Hampshire primary, which takes place next Tuesday.

No candidate declared outright victory in Iowa, although a few strongly implied, with unofficial tallies, that they had won the lion’s share of delegates.

No candidate dropped out, usually a hallmark of the Iowa caucuses.

“Iowa is supposed to be the place lots of candidates go to die,” said Democratic strategist Jim Messina, campaign manager for Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Iowa is supposed to be the place lots of candidates go to die Jim Messina

“Now, it seems like almost everyone is getting a ticket to ride to New Hampshire. Folks like [Andrew] Yang, [Tom] Steyer and maybe [Amy] Klobuchar all should have and would have had to get out today. Now they all can soldier on.”

Going into caucus night, polling suggested the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders would win Iowa, allowing him to coast through New Hampshire, where he polls at the front of the field, and on to South Carolina, where former vice-president Joe Biden is hoping to buoy his campaign. But on Tuesday morning, Sanders still couldn’t claim undeniable victory in Iowa.

As it turns out now, official Iowa results are not expected until some time on Tuesday.

It left Democrats confused and rival candidates itching to argue that no one had achieved frontrunner status.

The campaigns for Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg released their own internal tallies of delegate counts. Unsurprisingly, the Sanders count showed Sanders getting the most delegates. Buttigieg’s campaign didn’t go that far but his team still argued he was in a good position.

“Our data shows that Pete built a coalition that proves he is the best positioned to beat Donald Trump,” a Buttigieg memo said.

“Not only did he build a broad base of support geographically and demographically across the state, he also showed he can draw support in communities that voted for Obama in 2012 (and in many cases 2008) and then flipped to Trump in 2016.

“According to entrance polling as well, Pete came in first for caucus-goers who did not caucus in 2016 and he came in second only to Sanders with first time caucus-goers.”

Other campaigns also declared success while demanding the Iowa Democratic party give out more information. Greg Schultz, campaign manager for Biden, said in a statement his data showed Biden did well in important parts of the state.

“Our own model shows that Biden overperformed in key districts we needed to be competitive in and we feel confident that this is a tight race with bunched up candidates,” Schultz said.

“Let’s be clear: no state delegate equivalents have been awarded. When it comes to the final outcome of the caucuses, this is still a competition for delegates and the winner will continue to be based on State Delegate Equivalents. We believe that we have won our fair sure of them.”

At the same time, the Biden campaign’s general counsel sent a letter to the Iowa Democratic party chairman and executive director, demanding more information.

This is a complete and total ‘shibacle’. It’s hard to have a lot of confidence right now in any result Steve Schale

The letter said: “We believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released.”

Other candidates pivoted to New Hampshire. The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and others took late-night flights to the state. Deval Patrick, a former Massachusetts governor and a long-shot presidential candidate, touted an endorsement from a New Hampshire state senator.

Notably, early entrance polling in Iowa suggested a dip in participation among first-time voters, a troubling sign for Democrats who expected record turnout fueled by a hunger to oust Donald Trump.

On Tuesday morning, veteran strategists were still fretting over the Iowa chaos.

“Iowa is making my home state of Florida look like a model of vote-counting efficiency,” said Steve Schale, executive director of the pro-Biden Unite the Country Super Pac. “This is a complete and total ‘shibacle’. It’s hard to have a lot of confidence right now in any result.

“Every national poll showed the white vote all over the place, and we saw a very non-diverse Iowa confirmed that. Good news for my chosen candidate, soon we will go to states that represent the diversity of our party and our nation.”

Addisu Demissie, formerly campaign manager for Cory Booker, said the state Democratic party was right to delay the results but said Iowa still did not fulfil a key responsibility for a state that holds the first contest of the primary.

“I think the party is doing the right thing by delaying,” Demissie said. “But … a large part of the value of going first is in setting a narrative and winnowing the field for those who are – forgive the term – unviable. And Iowa did neither of those things.”

Charles Chamberlain, chair of the liberal group Democracy for America, predicted that one thing had not been changed: the overarching question in the Democratic party would be over which candidate could be most competitive against Trump.

“I think we’re not going to see this argument of electability go away,” he said, “because it’s all the corporate side [of the Democratic party] has”.