Pete Buttigieg Gets The Most Delegates In Iowa Caucus, Sanders Second
NOBLES: We have some breaking news now on the race for 2020. The Iowa Democratic Party has just released the official state delegate count for each of the Democratic presidential contenders. These are the numbers that everyone expected on caucus night, and they show that Pete Buttigieg is getting the most delegates with 14 to the Democratic National Convention, with Bernie Sanders coming in a close second with 12. These are the important numbers. These are the numbers that decide who the Democratic nominee will ultimately be. Let's get straight now to Dianne Gallagher, who is in Des Moines tracking this story. I know, Dianne, that the Iowa Democratic Party just held a conference call with reporters trying to offer some clarity. I'm not necessarily sure if they accomplished that goal, but tell us what we know at this point.</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn't exactly call the situation clear here in Iowa, to be very honest, Ryan. What I can tell you is exactly that, the projection of those delegates. Now, we still have a deadline tomorrow at noon Central Time, so 1:00 Eastern, that these parties -- these campaigns are able to request a full recanvassing or recount, if they would like, at that point. So, right now according to the Iowa Democratic Party, what they did was you can remember they requested, if campaigns saw any sort of inaccuracies, any sort of discrepancies within the precinct reporting, they were allowed to report those, and the party said they would investigate. There were a total of 95 that came from three campaigns, the Sanders campaign, the Buttigieg campaign, and the Warren campaign, as well as county chairs. According to the Iowa Democratic Party, 55 of those -- so that's 3 percent of all of the total precincts -- had to be revised. They said that there were four that were simply duplicates and that there were 36 that the math matched the worksheet. And that's important here, Ryan, because we are learning about essentially these cases where maybe there was not enough people the first round, and the second round caucusing of voting there at the precinct, they had more people. The numbers just didn't add up. According to the party, because it was signed by the precinct chair and the precinct secretary, who were both elected just before the caucus went into effect, that that is now, according to the Iowa code, that's it, that they can't -- because it matches, even if it doesn't seem to make sense, that's what they have to go off of. So, those revisions, we saw some of them that said the numbers were different, the wrong numbers had been entered. They were going back and checking with the papers to make sure on that paper trail, that paper record they have, that everything matched up with what had been put into the system. But again, 55 of those precincts, 3 percent of the total, had to be revised, and these are the projections of those delegates when it comes to. Now, the state delegate equivalent that former mayor Buttigieg was leading to begin with, that appears to be unchanged, but those national projected delegates, that's what really is going to matter here. And at this point, they have him leading Senator Bernie Sanders by two, with 14-12 there, Ryan.</s>NOBLES: All right, Dianne Gallagher live in Des Moines trying to unpack this very complicated situation.</s>GALLAGHER: Yes.</s>NOBLES: Dianne, we appreciate you doing that on such short notice. But let's try to get more clarity now from CNN Political Director, David Chalian, who is on the phone now. David, I guess the first question I have for you is, is this the end? Do we -- can we now declare a winner in Iowa, or is there still a layer of confusion here?</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR (via phone): Well, not so much a layer of confusion, Ryan, but as Dianne mentioned, there is a deadline tomorrow at noon Central, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, by which any candidate who wants to request a recanvass or a recount can do so. We've got no indication thus far that any candidate is going to do so. But this update of numbers from the Iowa Democratic Party it really hasn't changed all that much from where we are. Even though they adjusted numbers in some 55 precincts, you still see in the all- important state delegate equivalent percentages, as we've been saying all week long, this is the metric that determines the winner in the Iowa caucuses. You see that Pete Buttigieg is still 0.1 percent, tenth of 1 percent, ahead of Bernie Sanders in that all-important metric. If there is no recount or recanvass requested tomorrow, then at that point, Pete Buttigieg will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses. Now, as you know, there is also for the first time a popular vote that was reported out by the Iowa Democratic Party, and in that popular vote, you see Bernie Sanders has roughly a 2500-vote lead. He's been touting that as a metric of success as well. Obviously, both candidates did very well in Iowa, but it is the state delegate equivalent percentages that determine the winner of the Iowa caucuses. And that new piece of information that we have tonight shows you why that's so critical, because it is that that helps calculate what the national convention delegate picture begins to look like. Remember, we just started a long process for the first candidate to get to 1,991 delegates. That's how they secure the Democratic nomination. This is the very beginning of the allocation of that, what the Iowa Democratic Party did here, with Buttigieg getting 14, Sanders getting 12, Warren 8, Biden 6, and Klobuchar 1. That, again, matches up with the edge that Buttigieg has in those all-important state delegate equivalent percentages. So, barring any changing between now and that deadline, when that deadline passes and no recanvass or recount takes place, if that is what occurs, then Pete Buttigieg will be the winner of the Iowa caucuses -- Ryan.</s>NOBLES: So, David, as you mentioned before, in terms of the number of delegates that are going to go to the DNC, that's a pretty small number in the context of the entire number that it requires to win the Democratic nomination. Really, Iowa in history has been more of a symbolic bit of motivation for these candidates and the impact that it has on the race going forward. Do you think that this news as it comes out, and it looks as though we may have some clarity on it before voters go to the polls tomorrow in New Hampshire, if Pete Buttigieg is able to definitively declare victory, could that have an impact here in New Hampshire, or have New Hampshire voters already moved on?</s>CHALIAN: I'd be surprised if that had any appreciable impact, Ryan. I mean, both Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg had very strong nights out of Iowa. I think they've made that clear to the voters of New Hampshire this week. Even Joe Biden was making that clear today on the campaign trail in New Hampshire to voters that they both had really good nights. So, being the actual sort of reported winner once the Iowa Democratic Party process comes to a conclusion tomorrow, it will be good bragging rights, but I would have a hard time imagining that that is really going to impact the vote on Tuesday.</s>NOBLES: All right, David Chalian with that update. We are almost a week since the Iowa caucus took place, and we are inching closer to maybe being able to declare a victor. We'll see if it happens before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. David Chalian, Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much for being here with that breaking news out of Iowa and what it means as we ramp up to the New Hampshire vote, which is now less than 48 hours from where we are right now. Stand by.