Two days later, no Democratic caucus results for state or Floyd County

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was possibly the winner of the Democratic precinct caucuses in Floyd County that were held Monday night, just as he likely was statewide.

That “possibly” and “likely” are required because, two days after the caucuses were over, the final tallies are still not available.

As of Tuesday evening, the Iowa Democratic Party was still only reporting the results from 96% of state precincts, and one of those missing precincts is in Floyd County — Rockford-Ulster.

Floyd County Democratic Party Chairman William Baresel said 594 people attended the Democratic caucuses across the county.

For the state, Buttigieg won the caucus participant’s support and the state delegates by a wide enough margin that it’s unlikely the current second-place finisher, Sen. Bernie Sanders, can overtake him when the final 4% of precincts come in.

But in Floyd County, with seven out of eight precincts reporting, Buttigieg was only ahead of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota by one supporter.

The Iowa Democratic Party uses a system for its caucus where the final “winner” is determined by who gets the most delegates, not necessarily the results of individual counties or even who is most popular when caucus-goers divide up to finally express their support for “viable” candidates.

For example, in Floyd County, Sen. Elizabeth Warren had the support of a total of 91 caucus attendees in the seven precincts reporting, and Sen. Bernie Sanders had the support of 81 people.

But because of the way the delegates are figured, based in part on populations and number of attendees in each precinct, Sanders has 1.56 state delegate equivalents and Warren has only 1.33 in the preliminary results from Floyd County.