Sanders and Buttigieg head to head in Iowa and local counties’ caucus results

With a little over half of the state's precincts reporting Iowa Caucus results, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are in a tight race. Buttigieg has received the most delegates so far with 363 across the state. Sanders has 338.

Only 62% of the final precinct results came at 4 p.m. on Tuesday after delays caused by technical issues during Monday night's caucus. Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price called the delay 'unacceptable” at a press conference in Des Moines on Tuesday evening.

'I apologize deeply for this,” Price said at the conference. 'We hit a stumbling block on the reporting of the back end of the data, but we know this data is accurate.”

At the time of publication, there was no indication of when the rest of the state's results would come.

In Southeast Iowa, the same two candidates, Buttigieg and Sanders, saw success and went head to head in the tri-county area after a day of waiting, technological troubles, and confusion from national media.

In Henry County, the former South Bend Mayor Buttigieg won the most delegates at 43 with 28.67% of the final alignment. Vermont Senator Sanders received the second-most delegates in the county at 36. Former Vice President Joe Biden came in at third in Henry County with 25 delegates while Massachusets Senator Elizabeth Warren took fourth with 18 delegates. Businessman Andrew Yang and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar finished in fifth and sixth, taking 17 and 11 delegates respectively.

Washington County saw Sanders win the most delegates with 20. Behind him was Warren with 15, Klobuchar with 13, Buttigieg with 12 and Biden with 10.

With only 50% of Jefferson County reporting on Tuesday, Sanders had the lead with Warren taking second and Buttigieg in third.

Some precincts in the region also experienced issues turning their numbers in to the Iowa Democratic Party due to the smartphone app used to report the caucus results. In many cases, the app only reported partial results to the IDP.

Henry County Democratic Party Chair Jeff Fager said despite the troubles, results from Henry County were reported to the state on Monday night.

'I'm proud of the folks that were working the caucuses here in Henry County and all the precincts,” Fager said. 'We've already heard there were some issues with technology to get reports to the Iowa Democratic Party, we heard over and over from precinct chairs.”

Fager said only one precinct captain of the nine precincts in Henry County reported having no issues turning in numbers.

In 2016, when Fager was a precinct captain himself, he simply phoned in to the IDP and did not experience any issues.

'Unfortunately, not our experience this year in Henry County,” Fager said. 'If there are not changes [made to the reporting system], we are in serious trouble. There has to be a change.”

Voter turnout was down in Henry County as well, adding more 'shock and dismay” for precinct captains according to Fager. The county saw 710 caucusgoers participate in the first alignment. A handful of people went home after, leaving 648 in the final alignment.

'I don't know what that's about... I wonder if people were so flummoxed by the number of candidates and an inability to really make a decision that they just threw their hands up and stayed at home,” he said.

Bob Ferguson of Fairfield, a precinct chair for the Warren campaign in Ward 1 said that despite how the caucuses played out overall, he thought things went smoothly within the precinct.

'It was a lot easier to pass out cards and verify that everyone had a card,” Ferguson said. 'I thought it was more organized and more systematic than in years past. Now we have a complete record where there can be no question about the counts.”

Ashley Duong and Andy Hallman contributed to reporting.