U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders left for New Hampshire on Tuesday with a lead in the raw vote totals for Iowa’s caucuses, but trailing former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in state delegate equivalents.

With 70.82% of precincts reporting, Sanders had 394state delegate equivalents to Buttigieg’s 419. Delegate totals are what the Associated Press and most other news organizations will use to declare the winner of the Iowa caucuses.

Sanders, however, led in both caucusgoers' first and final alignment. Sanders' final alignment total was 32,772 supporters to Buttigieg's 31,458, according to the Iowa Democratic Party.

Delegates are awarded in an electoral college-style system based on prior Democratic votes in the area.

But Sanders didn’t know the disparity when he left the state; at that point, the Iowa Democratic Party hadn’t released any information.

Speaking to the Des Moines Register from the Des Moines International Airport

tarmac at about noon Tuesday, he said he was “extremely disappointed” that the Iowa Democratic Party did not have results from statewide caucuses that had begun 17 hours prior.

"Obviously, and I suspect I speak for all of the candidates, I am extremely disappointed by the inability of the Iowa Democratic Party to come up with the results in a timely manner. I don’t know why, in 2020, it should take so much time," Sanders said. “I don’t think it’s fair to the people of Iowa, the people of America, or to the candidates or their supporters.”

Live caucus updates:

The campaign sent a statement Tuesday afternoon from New Hampshire, shortly after the release of the partial set of results.

“We want to thank the people of Iowa," senior adviser Jeff Weaver said in the statement. "We are gratified that, in the partial data released so far, it’s clear that, in the first and second round, more people voted for Bernie than any other candidate in the field.”

The night before, without a conclusion to the nearly year-long effort by Sanders’ Iowa campaign, staff tore down and cleaned up from his victory party in a Des Moines Holiday Inn. Sanders spoke to the roughly 600 supporters gathered there at 11 p.m. Monday. He didn’t claim victory, but told them “I have a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa.”

“The message Iowa has sent to the nation, a message shared by the American people, is we want a government that represents all of us, and not just wealthy campaign contributors and the 1%,” Sanders said. “Tonight, in this enormously consequential 2020 election, the first state in the country has voted. Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump — the most dangerous president in modern American history.”

Mathew Johnson, a precinct captain for Sanders, had a different take away from the evening.

“This is a disaster,” said Johnson, 46, of Urbandale. “To the rest of the country, we look like idiots.”

He has caucused since 1988, including serving as a precinct captain for Sanders in 2016, as well. He remembers last cycle’s victory party feeling like the “polar opposite” of this year — Johnson didn’t expect victory, but the numbers kept rising until Sanders nearly tied Hillary Clinton in Iowa. This year felt promising for Sanders, but without any pay off.

“This is bad for everybody, honestly, because no one can claim victory,” Johnson said. “We’re in the same morass that we’ve been in for a year.”

More coverage from the Register:

In the hotel restaurant at about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Sanders’ national campaign staff talked quietly over their breakfasts, worked on laptops, and napped in chairs. It was the atmosphere of an airport terminal at 5 a.m. after a redeye flight was canceled — exhaustion on a journey that’s not over.

Jane Sanders, the senator’s wife and adviser, walked by a TV newscast showing a 4 p.m. release of the Iowa caucus results, and noted that the campaign had a rally planned in New Hampshire then and predicted, “we’ll be celebrating tonight.”

Before leaving for New Hampshire, Sanders thanked the thousands of volunteers in Iowa for powering the “extraordinary grassroots movement, which knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors, and enabled us to do as well as we did.”

Eriq Brown, 32, of West Des Moines, was one of those volunteers. His caucus was a good, if disappointing, experience. Delegate math didn’t quite reward Sanders a proportional number of delegates to his margin of victory at his precinct, Brown said. Still, he felt good about Sanders’ chances.

“We understand it’s just a part of the process,” Brown said Monday night while waiting for results. “I’m not here tonight to celebrate victory. And when Bernie wins in the summer — when he wins the nomination — I won’t be celebrating victory then. And when he wins in November against Trump, that’s not the time to celebrate victory — it’s the time to stand in solidarity with the people beside us and recognize these are the moments when we need to collect ourselves and move forward with a purpose.”

When results still hadn’t arrived Tuesday morning, Brown was more pessimistic, though not surprised. He noted that the delays gave cover to former Vice President Joe Biden on a poor initial showing, and Buttigieg had already all but claimed victory in Iowa before moving on to New Hampshire, even though results hadn’t rolled in at that point.

“I don’t have good feelings about the political establishment’s attempts at self-preservation,” he wrote in a text message.

Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at ncoltrain@registermedia.com or at 515-284-8361. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Subscribe today at DesMoinesRegister.com/Deal.