Sanders Declares Victory In Iowa

[highplainsdem]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sanders-declares-victory-in-iowa

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) claimed victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday, three days after the caucuses themselves but before the official final tally of results had been completed by the state’s Democratic Party.

-snip-

In a press conference Thursday, Sanders said he was claiming victory based on the popular vote in Iowa.

“When 6,000 more people come out for you in an election than your nearest opponent, we here in northern New England call that a victory,” he said, referring to the initial votes cast at the caucuses. Sanders also led, but by a smaller margin, the second round of popular voting at caucus sites.

The “state delegate equivalent” difference between he and Buttigieg, Sanders said, was “meaningless” given how close that tally was with 97% of precincts reporting.

-snip-

I'm guessing he's doing this now, rather than waiting for the full results, because he's worried he won't have most of the delegates.

[krissey]

1. Whatever.

[murielm99]

2. Trump declared victory today, too.

But I digress.

[highplainsdem]

5. +1,000,000

[Lulu KC]

8. laughing

It has become rather meaningless, hasn't it?

[MineralMan]

3. Of course he did.

[Uncle Joe]

4. The full result can't significantly change Bernie's popular vote margin of victory.

Thanks for the thread highplainsdem.

[Tiggeroshii]

6. It is safe to say he won if he won the popular vote by 6000 votes

Votes and is even likely to win the SDEs once that result fully comes out

[R B Garr]

7. Too late. We already know he's not the winner. nt

[Progress_Dem]

9. I think it is completely fair

for Sanders to claim victory given that he won the popular vote and the SDE is essentially a tie.

And he will claim it again next Tuesday night in New Hampshire.

[sweetloukillbot]

10. President Clinton agrees with you nt

[Baclava]

11. Watch out Bernie, the DNC is coming hunting for votes!

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

12. Can I say someone else got the most popular votes

And look where we are.

Without being accused of Hillary bashing?

[DanTex]

13. He's correct to. He clearly got more votes.

The SDEs are a virtual tie, the count isn't complete, and now with the recount we may not know for weeks. All the irregularities, along with the fact that for some reason the working class latino districts that Bernie won heavily weren't tallied until the very end, means that we won't have a reliable SDE number anytime soon.

But the SDEs are a technicality anyway, what matters is votes, and Bernie clearly got the most of those.

Congrats Bernie for winning the first contest, its a shame that the debacle denied him the Monday night victory speech and media coverage that he deserved.

[left-of-center2012]

14. "Sanders said he was claiming victory based on the popular vote in Iowa."

Clinton won the popular vote in fall of 2016.
How'd that work out?

[Uncle Joe]

15. Apples and oranges, the Iowa caucus isn't the

the equivalent of the electoral college despite blatant corporate media conglomerate attempts at painting it as such.

[sweetloukillbot]

16. And yet the popular vote doesn't matter at all in Iowa either nt

[Uncle Joe]

19. The popular vote most definitely matters but I believe the IDP did unnecessarily con-volute it

with post second stage calculations.

[sweetloukillbot]

21. Keep telling yourself that

Iowa is based on delegates- not who won the popular vote

[Blue_true]

23. The delegate allocation method that the IDC and DNC used this year

was one that Bernie demanded after 2016. So he lost under the system that he demanded, and in claiming victory under the one that Clinton won with in 2016. How is that for consistency?

[left-of-center2012]

22. Sure

[aikoaiko]

17. I've been super busy. Is there a definitive answer on the IA caucus?

Final votes and convention delegates?

[highplainsdem]

18. Nope. Sanders is rushing to declare victory in case the actual final result shows Buttigieg is

still ahead.

[Nanjeanne]

20. So it's ok for Pete to declare victory with 0 precincts reporting, but four days later

with thousands more popular vote and basically a 10th of a percentage difference in SDEs which will likely allocate the same amount of delegates to both Sanders and Buttigieg — Sanders can’t make the same claim?

All right then.