Pete Buttigieg's saw his lead in the Iowa Democratic caucus fall by a tiny fraction late Tuesday night as a new tranche of data was released amid the first-in-the-nation poll's ongoing fiasco.

With 71% of precincts now reporting, the 38-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, stood at 26.8%, a fractional fall from 26.9% earlier in the state delegate equivalent count, which is the key measure of success.

Bernie Sanders had a matching uptick of 0.1% to 25.2%, and he also saw his share of the second alignment votes - the equivalent of the popular vote in a national presidential election - go up too.

The mismatch of delegate equivalents and actual votes is a feature of the Iowa caucuses, but the difference will allow the 78-year-old Vermont senator to claim that he did just as well as Buttigieg - a claim he made vocally in New Hampshire late Tuesday night.

That leaves Buttigieg as still the one who gained most momentum out of the botched poll, whose catastrophic failure to deliver results as promised has left Democrats soul-searching about their ability to beat Donald Trump.

The latest set of results carried little good news for fourth-placed Joe Biden, who saw his share slip from 15.6% to 15.4%, while for Elizabeth Warren, for whom Iowa has been effectively a wash, there was a slight uptick from 18.3% to 18.4%.

Amy Klobuchar's results were unchanged on 12.6%, but she continued to claim she had punched above her weight.

Double down on victory claim: In Laconia, New Hampshire - which votes next week - Pete Buttigieg said he is in first place and hailed the momentum it had given him

I won too: In Manchester, New Hampshire, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said that he had a bigger share of the popular vote in Iowa - but that measure of success is secondary to delegates, which Buttigieg remains ahead in

Sen. Bernie Sanders greets supporters as he arrives in New Hampshire Tuesdsay after leaving Des Moines, Iowa

What was not forthcoming from the Iowa Democrats was a timetable of when the count will be over.

The appearance of 9% of the total precincts just after 11pm Tuesday night CST - already Wednesday on the east coast - came after 62% were announced at once.

It leaves 29% of precincts, and given how close the margin between Buttigieg and Sanders is, it appears almost impossible that the race can be called without a full set of results.

In Laconia, New Hampshire, Buttigieg doubled down on hailing a victory, which he had first done just after 11pm CST in Iowa on Monday night, a daring move which left Sanders looking flat-footed.

'They are not complete, but a majority is in, and they show our campaign in first place,' he said in Laconia.

'So, we don't know all of the numbers, but we know this, a campaign that started a year ago with four staff members, no name recognition, no money, just a big idea.'

Buttigieg, the first openly gay major party candidate, choked up talking about what the results meant to him.

'It validates for a kid somewhere in a community wondering if he belongs or she belongs or they belong in their own family that if you believe in yourself and your country, there is a lot backing up the belief,' he said.

Sorry about that: Troy Price, the chair of the Iowa Democratic party, promised the results were accurate - but admitted the process had been 'unacceptable'

'And now, we come to new Hampshire. A state that famously thinks for itself, and as we enter this new phase and this week ahead to convince New Hampshire to support this vision and then go on, I have never been more confident in our campaign, in our team, and in the vision that brought to us this point.'

But Sanders offered no concession.

'I'm very proud to tell you that last night in Iowa we received more votes in the first and second round than any other candidate,' Sanders told supporters at his first post-caucus-result rally in Milton, New Hampshire.

Sanders is dipping into New Hampshire Tuesday and Wednesday morning before heading back to Washington for the final afternoon of President Trump's impeachment trial.

In New Hampshire Sanders has benefited from next-door-neighbor status, winning the state by double-digit margins when he ran for president against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Four years later, he beats former Vice President Joe Biden, who's consistently been in second place, by 7.7 points according to the current Real Clear Politics polling average.

However, with Biden currently in fourth place in the Iowa results and Buttigieg taking first in the delegate count, the young mayor may see a boost. He's currently averaging 13.1 per cent support in the Granite State, versus 25.6 per cent for Sanders.

Sanders mentioned the dramatic delay of Iowa caucus results at the top of his remarks.

'For some reason in Iowa they're having a little bit of trouble counting votes,' Sanders noted.

'I am confident that here in New Hampshire you'll be able to count your votes on election night,' he continued. 'And when you count those votes, I would prefer to win here,' the Vermont senator added.

There was one clear loser however: the Iowa caucuses, which now face being consigned to history over an explosion of errors which shook the Democrats.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price apologized for the snafu that upended Democratic politics.

'The bottom line is that we hit a stumbling block on the back end of the reporting of the data but the one thing I want you to know: we know this data is accurate,' he said.

He reassured Americans about the outcome, after multiple candidates put their spin on the results.

'The one thing they will say is that the underlying data that — the raw data — is secure. It was always secure. This was a coding error in one of the pieces on the back-end, but the raw data, the data that has come in, is secure,' he said.

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'We have been working day and night to make sure that the results are accurate,' he pledged, after party officials told stunned media in Iowa that it would not release results Monday night.

He called the reporting that occurred 'unacceptable' and said he was sorry. 'As chair of the party, I apologize deeply for this,' he said in a televised news conference.

The strong performance by Buttigieg came as he was ridiculed by other party members for declaring victory before the results were in. Rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders put out his own unofficial count Monday night that had him leading the field in areas tabulated by his staff.

In fact, at least as far as the first 62 per cent precincts were concerned, it is Buttigieg who is the unofficial leader.

'It took longer than we expected,' he said of the count.

Price wouldn't say when the full 100 per cent of results would be available.

When asked about President Trump's allegation the results were rigged, Price responded: 'We have said all along, that we would make the caucuses more transparent, and this year, we are reporting out more data than we have ever reported before and in addition to that, we have paper trails that we have never had before. So we will take the time to verify the results, but the results are based off of what happened in the precincts last night.'

And he wouldn't say if he would resign as party chair over the fiasco, Price demurred.

'When I ran for chair, I made a commitment to see the caucus process through. That is what I am working on. That is what I will continue to work on, and whatever happens that, it is to be determined.'

'Anyway, thank you all, folks, the results are coming in, and we will see you later,' he concluded as he ended his press conference in Des Moines, moving rapidly off stage.

The event was packed with reporters who stayed behind to cover the turmoil in Iowa, even as the candidates hastily made their way to New Hampshire for political events.

At the same time, Democratic presidential candidates put their own inexact spin on the Iowa caucuses Tuesday morning as they headed to campaign events across New Hampshire.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts spoke almost as soon as she landed in New Hampshire – the next big battleground on the political calendar – declaring herself satisfied with her performance after flying direct from Des Moines.

'When I left Iowa, I said it was too close to call, and it still is, but I feel good,' she told reporters. 'It is good to be in New Hampshire.' She declared her own organization, with hundreds already deployed across the country, up to the task.

'This is an organization that is built for the long haul,' she said.

Shadowy app behind vote-count chaos in Iowa 'Inconsistencies' with an app that was supposed to track the results of the Democrat caucuses in Iowa threw the vote into chaos overnight - with zero per cent of precincts reporting early Tuesday. The app was created by Shadow, Inc., a technology firm that was created in January last year after data and messaging service Groundbase was acquired by Democrat non-profit ACRONYM. Finance records show the Iowa Democratic Party paid $60,000 to Shadow, Inc. for website development at the back end of last year which was spent on the app, according to Huffington Post. Shadow's CEO Gerard Niemira, product manager Ahna Rao and COO James Hickey all worked on the Hillary for America campaign which was defeated by Donald Trump in 2016. Other staff include alumni of Obama's presidential campaign, as well as Google, Apple and the DNC. Advertisement