President Donald Trump lambasted the Democrats after the first caucus night in the primary season quickly took an unexpected turn.
A night that many candidates looked to as a way to propel to their campaign quickly fell into disarray after it became clear that something had gone wrong in the vote tallying process.
The night started to unravel after Iowa Democratic Party officials said they were not releasing results because they were conducting a “quality control” process. Party officials said they hoped to release the results as early as Tuesday.
The delay in reporting the results could limit any potential bump a candidate might have received after a strong finish in Iowa while buoying candidates performed poorly.
Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to mock the Democrats for the “unmitigated disaster” in a series of tweets.
“The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is ‘Trump.'”
The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated disaster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Website, that should have cost 2% of that. The only person that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020
When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale also seized on the delay of the results to attack Democrats.
“Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?”
Meanwhile, Trump touted his victory in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, where he won roughly 97% of the vote.
The Democrat Party in Iowa really messed up, but the Republican Party did not. I had the largest re-election vote in the history of that great state, by far, beating President Obama’s previous record by a lot. Also, 97% Plus of the vote! Thank you Iowa!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020
Seeking to recover from the disaster, the presidential hopefuls delivered speeches declaring that they felt they had performed well in Iowa.
Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced that he was “victorious” on Monday night.
Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-Vt.) campaign also sought to claim a victory and released its own unverified results from Iowa, which showed Sanders leading the pack in the delegate count.
Iowa’s state Democratic party said on Tuesday that the app, used to report the results, encountered an error and was reporting “only partial data.”
