AP decides not to declare Iowa caucus winner after recount

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Iowa Democratic Party on Thursday released updated results of the Iowa caucuses after the completion of a recount requested by the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

In the new results, Buttigieg has 562.954 state delegate equivalents and Sanders has 562.021 state delegate equivalents out of 2,151 counted. That is a margin of 0.04 percentage points.

The Associated Press has reviewed the updated results and will not call a winner, given remaining concerns about whether the results as reported by the party are fully accurate. The Feb. 3 caucuses were beset by technical glitches that led to a delay in reporting the results, inconsistencies in the numbers and no clear winner.

The party plans to certify the results on Saturday. At that point, the caucuses will formally end, and no further changes to the results will be made.

Iowa awards 41 national delegates in its caucuses. As it stands, Buttigieg has 13 delegates and Sanders has 12. Elizabeth Warren won eight, Joe Biden won six and Amy Klobuchar won one.

A final delegate will be awarded to Buttigieg as the candidate with the most state delegate equivalents. The AP will update its tally of the national delegates won in Iowa with that final delegate on Saturday, once the Iowa Democratic Party formally votes to certify the results.

Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned after the caucus fiasco, saying that Democrats deserved better and that he bore responsibility for any failures. Iowa Democrats selected Iowa state Rep. Mark Smith as interim chairman after Price’s resignation.

This isn’t the first time the AP has decided against calling a race, though it is rare.

The most notable example was in 2000, when the results of the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore were too close to call at the end of election night. The AP decided not to call the race for either candidate. The ensuing recount dispute eventually reached the Supreme Court, which effectively cleared the way for Bush to become president.

___

Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, “Ground Game.”