Pete Buttigieg, Sanders lead in 1st Democratic presidential nomination race

New York: Pete Buttigieg, a small-town mayor breaking into national politics, and veteran Senator Bernie Sanders emerged as leaders in the first results of the chaotic Democratic Party race in Iowa for nomination to run against President Donald Trump.

In the first results covering 71 percent of the voting precincts released on Tuesday, former Vice President, who was considered the front-runner, ended up fourth, behind Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Buttigieg received 26.8 percent of the delegates who will ultimately vote for the presidential candidate at the party convention; Sanders received 25.2 percent, Warren 18.4 percent, and Biden 15.4 percent.

Iowa is the first state to hold the party election for its nominee for the November presidential election and performance there brings national attention to the leaders. Biden may have been damaged by the disclosures about his son’s business dealings in Ukraine and his intervention there which were aired during the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The declaration of results has been held up because of a software problem in the app deployed by the Democratic Party for the precincts to report the results of the selection process held on Monday.

In the US registered party members vote to select their party candidate to run for president and for many other offices. Iowa used a system of open voting called caucuses, rather than secret ballot.

The results were scheduled to have been announced on Monday night within hours of the close of the caucuses but the app failed and the back-up system of getting the results over the phone and manually entering them also flopped. The Iowa Democratic Party said that the app had not been hacked and it was only a software glitch. The app, produced by Shadow Inc., which says its mission is to “build political power for the progressive movement” and is staffed by many people connected to past presidential campaigns. Buttigieg and Biden were among its clients. (IANS)

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