Mayor Pete Challenges Iowa Results Now That Bernie Is Leading

The 2020 Iowa caucuses have been a mess of historic proportions, second perhaps only to the 2012 Republican caucuses, which took two weeks to finalize the results, flipping the winner from Mitt Romney to Rick Santorum. After three days there is still no officially declared winner, although by most accounts Vermont senator Bernie Sanders seem poised to come out on top. The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) has released the results in a sporadic trickle, and, now, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, the Sanders campaign claimed a "decisive victory" on Thursday, leading South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg by 6,000 votes. Because of the overly-complicated metrics used in Iowa, Sanders and Buttigieg are essentially tied in allocation of state delegate equivalents—550 to Buttigieg and 547 to Sanders, a difference of 0.1 percent.

But just as Iowa looks like it's finally going to be in the rearview mirror, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) tossed in a hand grenade. According to Bloomberg News, on Thursday morning, the Buttigieg campaign "raised concerns" with the IDP they weren't properly allocating state delegate equivalents that the candidates earned in satellite caucuses—the caucus equivalent of early or out-of-state voting. As Ryan Grim reported at the Intercept, the Sanders campaign dedicated a lot of time and resources to getting people to attend the satellite caucuses, and the results were in Sanders's favor.

Buttigieg's campaign declined to comment to Bloomberg News, but hours after the call reportedly took place, DNC chair Tom Perez tweeted, "Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass."

Perez doesn't have the authority on his own to order a recanvass, but his call to do so puts new pressure on the IDP to start counting delegates all over again. In response, the IDP seems to have swatted down the suggestion from Perez though, writing, "Should any presidential campaign in compliance with the Iowa Delegate Selection Plan request a recanvass, the IDP is prepared."

It's not clear if the Buttigieg's campaign reported complaint is enough to trigger a recanvass, but it's one more development in what's been a disastrous first stage of the 2020 election. The IDP relied on a barely-tested app from a private company, at the suggestion of the DNC, and were so confident that there would be no real problems that there were only a dozen or so people on hand at IDP headquarters to field hotline calls from the 1,681 precincts in the state. The result was chaos, as hundreds of precinct secretaries tried calling in to report their totals after the app malfunctioned, with some of them being on hold for hours or just hung up on. At some point during the night of the caucuses, the hotline number was posted online, and trolls flooded the line to say they supported Donald Trump, further slowing down results.

The New York Times also reports that, on Wednesday, the IDP released results showing a string of successes for former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, a shocking development since Patrick entered the race late and has statistically nonexistent support in polls. It turned out the IDP had counted some of Sanders's wins as Patrick's, and some of Elizabeth Warren's as Tom Steyer's, and overcounted Buttigieg's numbers in those same districts.

For Perez to publicly call for a recanvass just as the the total results are almost out is surprising, especially three days after the caucuses. Perez has had a controversial tenure as the head of the DNC, and his critics have often accused him of having an anti-Sanders agenda. He narrowly won an election for the position in 2016 after former president Barack Obama campaigned on his behalf against former Minnesota representative Keith Ellison, a Sanders supporter, and, shortly after becoming chair, Perez forced four officials out of leadership roles. All four were from the party's progressive wing and had supported Sanders's 2016 candidacy as well Ellison's bid to head the DNC. E-mails obtained by Wikileaks showed Perez regularly coordinating with Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta in 2016—in one, Perez congratulated him on Clinton's win in the Nevada caucuses and added that he was about to appear on Telemundo "where I can trumpet [Clinton's] strong support among Latinos and put a fork once and for all in the false narrative about Bernie and Latinos."

Perez was swiftly criticized online, with some pointing out the suspicious timing of his demand, for his perceived meddling in the Iowa caucus results. Even former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, the woman whose campaign was built on the idea that "only love" can win in 2020, is now calling for Perez to resign.

The “Oh Not Sandersers” are coming out in force—and their nervousness seems to be driven by the strength of the Sanders campaign.

Originally Appeared on GQ