>> when was -- when was the app submitted for an independent clear party? why was the app never tested statewide and why would the party deny testing the app? >> i have no knowledge of the department of homeland security making that offer to us. i will say that we have worked with cyber security experts to test this app and to do testing and security checks on this app. we have -- we took the steps we thought were necessary, but we found a coding error last night, once we discovered some irregularities as the results started coming in. >> why was it never -- will you have internal testing? >> were there any coding discrepancies during the third party testing? >> no, there weren't. >> that's why what happened last night is simply unacceptable.

and so again, we're going to have a thorough and independent review of exactly what happened last night, we still right now, we're in the process of making sure we get these results out. that's what we're going to stay focused on. >> donald trump has suggested that this whole process is rigged. how do you assure americans that this is trustworthy, this data? >> we have said all along that we were going to make these caucuses the most transparent possible. we're reporting out more data than we ever have reported before. we have paper trails that we've never had before. and so we're going to take the time we need to verify these results, but these results are based off what happened in the precincts last night. >> were you feeling pressure to step aside? >> when i ran for chair, i made a commitment to see the caucus process through.

that is what i'm working on, that is what i will continue to work on. whatever happens after that, is to be determined. thank you all, folks, the results are coming in. we'll see you later. >> it is 5:02 p.m. eastern time, the first numbers are indeed coming in. no, not yet. brian williams here with you in new york. steve kornacki at the board. they dropped a ton of votes, let me take you through this, there are three different categories, they were all just released at once. what you're seeing, this is the state delegate equivalent category. this is the -- the numbers you see underneath, 359 for buttigieg, 243 for elizabeth warren, these are state delegate equivalents. there are about 2100 of these statewide. buttigieg with 359, that's accounting for 27%.

you can start to do the math of what this accounts for. this is a complicated formula where each precinct works their way up. notably, let me make sure i saw this right. this is the final product. this is the initial preference. yes, we have a discrepancy right now, the initial preference when people showed up, this is -- remember, these are not final results right now. 62% of precincts. we have to see what that exactly accounts for in terms of votes here, the numbers that the iowa democratic party just released the initial preference in these precincts you can see, was sanders 24, buttigieg 21. warren 19. biden 15, you can see klobuchar 15. what happens in every precinct. let's show you what happened then. again for all these precincts. this is the reallocation. remember those numbers, watch this. there you go. >> sanders on the second

allocation continuings to lead much tighter. how does sand ards lead in the state delegate equivalent if he's not leading on the second allocation? it gets into, and i have to take a look here closely. my suspicion here would be, what we've been talking about. these counties are weighted differently here, the rural counties have more clout when it comes to the state difference. these are rural counties, these are rural counties, sanders purple, college county, college county, college county. 52% for sanders here, these counties lose clout in the state delegates, therefore, i think what you're seeing is the clout of the buttigieg counties in the state delegate equivalent putting him on top there, again, let's see if anything new came in. sanders in the first.

sanders in the second. and then in the state delegate, buttigieg leading. a lot of questions, i have to dive into these and see where they came from. in a very narrow race, not every county gets state delegate equivalents that are equal to the turnout, the possibility if sanders ran up the score. here's another one. black hawk county, sanders 30%. iowa city, johnson county. sanders 33%. this is jefferson county, sanders 52%. sanders 31%. getting big numbers in these places. i'm out of breath here, i'm sorry. >> you're condensing an entire night's work into five minutes. take all the time you need. >> these were sanders big counties you can see in 2016. 60% here against hillary clinton. wins it again. look at this one, jefferson county, 73% here in 2016. the sanders people in 2016 felt

that they had won the first preference but lost the state delegate equivalent for this reason. again, i say, these are not final results, we have to see where the outstanding precincts are. the possibility that exists here. let me take a quick look at this. the possibility that exists here, is that the outstanding precincts could lift buttigieg. this seems significant. polk county, check this out. largest in the state excuse me. sanders leading on the first allocation here, watch this in 2016. this was clinton, clinton got a big boost. this is des moines, des moines suburbs. clinton got a big burst here, sanders leading on the first allocation, 6/10 of a point. sanders leading in polk, that's a surprise. these are upscale suburbs, that's a strength for buttigieg.

you go to warren county. strength for buttigieg. jasper county, strength for buttigieg. in des moines, and up here, story county, where ames is, strength for sanders, davenport here? 100%, this was sanders in 2016 by a close margin, buttigieg takes it. buttigieg in the mississippi river area, buttigieg actually did well here this time. let's see if there's an outstanding vote in any of these places. that's dubuque. buttigieg wins in de duke. what's that? okay, they're telling me when it says 100% to disregard -- do we know how much it is? okay, so 100% is not in. >> when you see 100% take a discount off. >> is the 95% accurate? >> where is that? >> you have 95% up there when

you were doing the overall numbers. see it says 95%? is that correct? >> i'm asking my producer right now. what do we know about the 95%, the iowa democratic party told us 62%. where is the significance there? we're trying to get clarity on that, is the answer. >> if i ask you, on what did buttigieg base his decision to give a victory speech last night, before flying to new hampshire, how would you answer that? >> well, i think his campaign would say, they're taking. they have spotters at all these different precincts. we have to get a grip where it is. here's one way we can judge this. add up -- this is the initial preference. they told us last night, they believe turnout was on par with 2016. it was 170,000.

27 and 23 gets you 50, 70, 86,000. 101. 106. about 108. this is about 110,000 votes. the iowa democratic party said 170,000. this would be about 2/3 of the vote. this would lead opportunities. the key,we have to figure this out. i apologize this is saying 100%. we have to figure out what is left in these counties. that's the key right now. there could be areas. buttigieg doing well in davenport. you see dubuque is to sanders. there are some areas where buttigieg is doing well, with the outstanding vote. it's very close. i mean, look at the state delegate equivalents right now. what's the gap here statewide. we're looking at a gap of 25. when every county -- the counties are assigned differently. you can have 150 state delegate

equivalents. there could be opportunities here for buttigieg again. running up the score in some of these suburbs here. opportunities for him, opportunities just -- look at these rural counties. he's probably performing very well here. it's not just that he's performing well. buttigieg performing very well. sanders getting pasted there. opportunities there looking around up here. opportunities for buttigieg to gain delegates, sanders to get none. there's certainly opportunities there for buttigieg to pick up ground. we have to get a better sense here of where this came from. i can show you in 2016 what the -- check this out -- this is the size of the lead. in 2016 -- there it is. here's what i'm trying to do. we have sanders right now. >> let's see here. this was sanders county in 2016. sanders in 2016. i'm looking where he has --

where he's missing strength here. yep, story county. let me go back to the -- i'm going to ask if you can give me three minutes to try to get a handle on this. i have -- >> this is like, you missed the super bowl, we're handing you the score. and you're wondering how we got to the final score. among the questions we have for steve, will we ever call the state? will we ever project a winner in iowa? will iowa ever have the idea, hey, should we just vote on people? claire, this is a mess. if it isn't a mess, it will do until the mess gets here.

we should happen. >> first, not only is this a buzz kill for the candidates that did well. it's a buzz kill for caucuses ever. because we know there are some delegates that were awarded, that shouldn't have been awarded. we now have information that -- you weren't supposed to ever do anything other than get better, if you had a first separation where you were viable. we know that didn't happen in every case. >> the story you told in the last hours. >> we were looking at each other going what? how does that happen? >> i think the paper trail's going to be important, that you actually -- especially if we have that few delegates separating an ability to declare

victory between buttigieg and bernie sanders. i think you're going to see some recounting of delegates based on what the rules were supposed to be, rather than the way they were reporting. >> recounting the what, though? iowa's going to end up like, all the children are above average. all the candidates are going to claim they did, and be able to claim they did better than expected or better than somebody else. and you've got these different measures of doing well. so is the person who won, the person who got the most state delegate equivalents. or is it the person who got the most votes on the first round or the most votes on the second round. so there could be -- you know, different candidates who are able to claim victory on those different bases. >> david, you're the one that ran the campaign. >> i'm looking at you going holy

cow. >> this is one person's view. i think the original sin, this is a caucus, not a primary. three sets of numbers out there, they wanted transparency, you look at that, one winner here, then a tie. and a third winner. >> and don't believe 1200% of the numbers. >> the reason you'll have different -- and i know this is going to generate conspiracy theories. the reason why buttigieg could win the state delegate and lose the preference. let's say bernie sanders gets five delegates. he had 20 or 25 people more than he needed that fourth. he doesn't get any benefit from that. you could have one or two people that get you that extra delegate. so that's what's happening there, and if you look at those -- i think, bernie sanders had a good night, he'll take that on to new hampshire. the tragedy is, not only might you have been denied a real victory, you look at where he did well along the mississippi

river and rural counties all over the state. he's not going to get the full benefit of what is a solid electoral story for him. now, the reckoning's coming in new hampshire. you delay the reckoning maybe for eight days. >> jason? >> yeah. >> none of this is good is the basic thing. >> that's all the time we have, thank you very much. >> you sort of had one job, this is the larger thing that concerns me, this makes me feel like the day after election day. is this where we're going to be in ten months, yelling, screaming, and trying to figure out what was counted properly on a day where donald trump has higher than expected approval ratings. this could be the single worst day of the democratic primary season between this screw up, the impending state of the union and trump's approval numbers this is the worst way for the

party to present itself. they have got to clean this up unless they look like the party that's not competent enough to stop a president with a great economy. >> we have nevada caucuses coming up next. we have -- you know, there's fewer states holding caucuses this time. if you want to look at the nightmare scenario. i lived in arizona right now, the nightmare scenario is, the map stays the same at 16, except for democrats win back michigan and pennsylvania. democrats 268, republicans 260. we just saw in the senate race, it takes weeks to count the vote in arizona. this would be a manhattan project to figure out how to tighten that up. >> if we still have any viewers left. shaquille brewster is covering the sanders campaign in manchester new hampshire. i'm glad you seem awake and alert. tell us what the reaction has

been to -- we don't really know what to ask you, because we don't know what our lead story is yet. co kornacki is taking oxygen and nourishment and will be back with us. >> it's still early, and they just got the numbers as we are getting the numbers. some of the initial read you're getting from the sanders campaign, that they're winning that first round by several,000, that's something they're optimistic about. this is something that they -- this is a line of messaging you heard all throughout caucus day. they felt they were going to do well in this first round of caucusing. this isn't a primary, this is a caucus. once you get in that room, that's when things start shifting, that's what was unpredictable to them. this is closer to what they had in the polls. they're still optimistic, saying they want to see more data, they're saying based on that first round and focusing on that

first round of balloting. that's not what will ultimately matter and not what will determine who wins iowa. they're highlighting that first element. that goes to the point where you are talking about, there is a chance that you're going to have multiple candidates declaring victory. you're already starting to get a hint of that with this early data with 62% of the precincts in from the iowa democratic party. >> are you at the airport? did you get off the plane and get to a camera? >> yes. >> i was trying to hide that part, but we got off -- >> i think the control tower gave you away. >> he left des moines iowa this morning, and he came straight to manchester, he's having a rally in an hour here and then is going to have a response to the state of the union, he's right back on the campaign trail. he talked to us on the plane about the results to come. he did say he was disappointed in the fact that the iowa democratic party wasn't able to

convince these results quickly. one thing he did say. and i think we should make sure we hold all the campaigns including him. his campaign too, it's unfair. it's unfair to discount the results that do come out and to draw suspicions or suggest that there's inaccuracies in the data that's out there. they release their own data, they're proud of their data. this is the data we have to look for. he's saying it would be unfair to draw any conclusions that the data that's now being reported is inaccurate. right now they're still focused on. checking my phone right now to see if there's any update. they're highlights that first round of balloting for the caucuses. this is a caucus, it matters what happened in the room after people realign. i'm sure steve will give us more on that in a second. >> great job, you're young, you have plenty of time to sleep later. thank you very much for your

reporting on zero sleep. two things to show you. pete buttigieg has started a town hall in laconia new hampshire. and steve, tell me when you're ready for us to come back to you. we'll look at that in front of some local artwork, and we'll go back to steve corn ago can i, so what do you have? to sort of clear up the confusion, because i was as confused as everybody at home, looking at these numbers when they came in. you were seeing these percentages at the top that were way off, and in some cases they are way off. they are being adjusted. this is external coming into us. they are being adjusted. we're showing you what they're looking for. take a look at this county right here, this is a purple county, the home of the university of northern iowa, cedar falls, iowa, this is a bernie sanders county. you can see now this is the accurate number for what is in

from black hawk county. one of the larger counties in the state, a third is in black hawk county, this is being adjusted, we are now getting a sense of where the outstanding vote is, i can show you a couple other places, woodbury county, this is sioux city, this was a sanders county, you have two thirds in right there, more to come right there. i can tell you, we are getting a much clearer sense, i think it's going to take a few more minutes for this to come in to us. to really get a sense of where the outstanding vote is, that was the problem earlier, telling us there was 100% in everywhere, clearly there wasn't. it was no indication of where the discrepancies were, we're getting that right now, i think within the next few minutes we'll have a clear sense of that. >> claire mccaskill, what will happen as a result of this, what will the party do? >> i think the party will have a

reflective moment over this chaos. and caucuses are hard. you know, my thing last night when i was railing at -- eugene and i were railing on caucuses. our party ought to be the party that's trying to expand voter participation. >> what's good about caucuses? >> there's this anachronism in terms of where you're in a room with your neighbors and everyone is celebrating the participation and talking to your neighbors, b for this person, no, b for this person. that's all well and good. i think we need to be thinking about who can't be in that room and how we vote for two weeks instead of three hours. >> a casserole party followed by voting. >> there you go. >> steve kornacki, i'm told there's something coming from the decision desk? >> the decision desk is monitoring this with everyone else. they characterize this, buttigieg and sanders vying for

first place from our decision desk. just to tell you, getting a sense of where the outstanding vote is, the mother load in the state, it turns out you can see basically half of polk. that's another place we have a ton of votes to come from. it's buttigieg and sanders vying for that first place position. >> to repeat for our viewers on this kind of thing, it's not official until it's official. we have these election experts at all the news organizations where they were closed off from us. we're not allowed access to them. and they call it when they have seen enough. i'm sorry to interrupt you. the social aspect of a caucus. i went home and watched even more of it last night on c span. it's terrific to see any two people getting along in this

country. the mechanics of this unacceptable in 2020. >> especially what confidence has done in the constitutions. if you don't believe it's going to be enforced fairly, you're less inclined to follow the law. if you don't think elections are held fairly, you're less inclined to participate. and that means, we pick our leaders, russia doesn't, apps don't. this incident is going to undermine the confidence of people in their results, and that -- we can't afford that right now. >> people believed in the caucuses before, though. and so -- just one thing from kornacki's map.

i didn't see any green counties. that might be something that klobuchar would like to tell. i won these counties, i did well. >> the information age was going to be beyond our wildest dreams, and we couldn't have imagined almost 20 hours later, getting partial results from the iowa caucuses. >> i was telling you about tom courtney out in burlington iowa, one of the areas we're waiting for results from. why couldn't we pick up the phone like we've always done it, when he weren't that route, did the backup way, nobody would answer the phone. that's why we're all in this --

we've been trying to zern based off what the campaigns are telling us, versus looking at those entrance polls. i got off the phone with an aide to kbut gag. you can call it an advantage for pete buttigieg. holding nearly 50 events over those final three weeks, and you're looking at the map, steve was the one pointing it out. not only did he win in dubuque, but in the suburbs, right around the des moines area here. he also went up into areas like carroll. 300 came out last saturday night for a rally of his. her area, her little county, i hold more liberal views than others around here. i'm going to caucus for pete buttigieg, not only for those that consider themself modera

moderates, but that's what you saw buttigieg run with the last few weeks, have them participate in this democratic caucus last night. when you looked at the entrance polls, the one thing we could take away. 20% consider themselves to be independents. he wanted significance for all of those. for pete buttigieg, the question is now what. he was a little more resounding, at the same time, he has -- dealing with the realities, single digits in polling in nevada, south carolina, in these later primary states. this is his opportunity. he had 8 events here in the future to tell the rest of the country, i made the pitch, i can beat donald trump in the midwest. he won after barack obama won in 2008 and 2012. a lot of these areas were the obama/trump counties. now effectively, pete buttigieg

can make the case, if he's able to pull off this caucus victory, he would have won a midwest state, which he's never won statewide. now he can say if -- depending on where these results go, he would be able to do that, and be able to win over these trump counties. the one area here that you're looking at. i'm going to point back to carroll county one more time. steve will be better able to extract off that map there. amy klobuchar met the threshold. it wasn't him banking on reports that they were supporting. it was out of pure support in these areas. these are good numbers. >> steve kornacki, the elephant in the room yesterday. joe biden. i'm looking at fourth. >> you can see this right here,

we now have -- i'm sorry to the folks at home, it took us so long. we have a handle where the vote is from and where we're missing. this is the end product of all the calculations that begin in the precincts level, this is where they're ultimately determined. this is the order with 62% of the precincts in the state. nearly 2/3 reporting, buttigieg is a 25% state difference. you go to biden and klobuchar at 16. interestingly on that first preference, it continues to be sanders who is leading with 24, buttigieg with 21. warren with 19, biden with 15. klobuchar with 13. they go through the reallocation. it results in this. in terms of where the outstanding vote is, and though

is going to be determined. the bigger the circle, the more precincts you have that are outstanding. we can show you, as i said, the mother lode here is polk county around des moines. this is 20% of the state anyway. take a look at this. about half the precincts are in polk. we're trying to find out which half those are. it's very close, it's a slight sanders lead here over buttigieg. there is plenty more to come here, to present an opportunity for buttigieg. in 2016, sanders took a bit of a hit in polk county, this is a better performance for him, you see the second largest share here, we've been talking about this, black hawk county. university of northern iowa, bernie sanders here, slight lead over buttigieg. only about a third in right there, you're seeing potential

strength here for sanders. this is cedar rapids, these are slight, 28, 26, you have a third to come in right there. there is davenport, this is where you see buttigieg having an opportunity right here. another one for buttigieg here, dubuque, half still to come in dubuque county. this is mason city, you can see not only is buttigieg leading. this is where sanders could get into trouble. again he's not close to buttigi buttigieg. biden could be, sanders might get some, you see the potential for buttigieg to open up a bit of an advantage there. you're seeing opportunities here for pete buttigieg to get a little bit of distance. these are the only two population centers in the western part of the state. this is council bluffs.

this is where sanders did well here in 2016, again two point advantage, about 60% in right there, sioux city and woodbury county. sanders fared well here in 2016, a little bit of a sense here, when you get into these rural counties, sanders having some trouble. he has some big population centers. that certainly could be key here. there are a couple -- some of these that look very small, under a couple of these college counties floating around. where sanders could clean up as well. basical basically, i want to see here, polk county, we're going to try to get a sense here. half of the largest county, that's 10% of the state to come in here. >> two questions, number one, can you show me the closest iowa county, military voters number one and number two to jean's

question. why no green counties. >> let's go back, i'm still learning this bubble one. yeah, you do not have warren leading in any -- let's check one thing here. you don't have warren leading in any of the state delegates right here. let's take a look at this. this is a small one. this is decatur county. this is graceland university here, this is generally a very rural low income part of the state, graceland university is down here, this is actually in this stretch of the state, sanders got slaughters. you have warren and sanders 1-2 there. you'll probably see warren. in washington county you have -- i'm told in the second allocation of washington county -- so she's got a lot of second chance votes here, elizabeth warren did, in

washington county. and yet, this is the peculiar airity of this o the second allocation. let's translate that, and look at that, bernie sanders leaps over her. here's a countyhe second allocation it was warren with a slight advantage there. when she ties that by precinct strength, it was sanders who got the advantage. we're talking a fractional difference here. we're going to start going through these, i think there are going to be a lot of examples of this, where candidate a won the first vote, the second vote, lost the third vote, that sort of thing. this is -- frankly we said it was possible give ing what the polls looked like coming into us. it's what it's looking like right now. buttigieg leading the state delegate equivalents. >> thank you for that question. that was -- david i'm looking at you. >> you were having a discussion on caucuses. i mean, i'd say, the one benefit

of -- >> you can call me claire, i think we've known each other long enough. >> presidential campaigns that succeed historically are built on the backs of amazing young organizers. for us, the kids that came out of iowa helped us win. with social media, the television coverage is fascinating. i'm not sure someone walking around a gym with a pad doing long division -- the more transparent looks. when someone wins in iowa or elsewhere, less issues, when you have something this close, and this many winners. my former colleague had a piece today about what do we do going-forward? there will be a lot of ideas. i think caucuses are dead. i'll be surprised if we have them in our process. to say, in the last presidential election, 3 to 4 states that were the closest, have them go

first, that's where you want the benefit of the organization. there will be a lot of other good ideas. i think we'll have seismic change. if we have an incumbent president, that will come to bear for us in 2008. >> can we have an honest discussion about joe biden, who in so many ways was the focal point of so much of our coverage. and jason. he emerged, he flew out of town secretly in fourth place. >> he ran out the back door. >> we walked it together. they were surprised he had been ticking up in the polls the last couple weeks. they didn't care that much. they're staking their claim both in a delegate way and in a narrative way by saying, go ahead, let mayor pete win in these majority white states. that's not what our whole party is going to look like. let bernie sanders win where he

can caucus and get his young organizers together. we're going to win in nevada and south carolina. i'm not surprised by joe biden, the issue here that i see. i don't think he has to worry about what's going to happen with michael bloomberg. what happens if you don't do that well in south carolina. what happens if you don't do that well in nevada. you can't keep skipping things and say, we're going to come back in the fourth quarter. that doesn't work for everyone. >> we have some more highlights to talk about now. just? case you haven't been glued to your phone in the last few minutes, i want you to hear something for me. a little later than we anticipated, but better late than never. official verified caucus results are coming in from the state of iowa. they're not complete but results

are in from a majority of precincts. and they are show our campaign in first place. [ cheers and applause ] >> so we don't know all of the numbers, but we know this much. a campaign that started a year ago with four staff members, no name recognition. no money, just a big idea. a campaign that some said should have no business even making this attempt has taken its place at the front of this race to replace the current president with a better vision for the

futu future. and no matter what happens next. this much is undeniable, that fact represents an astonishing victory for this campaign, this candidacy and this vision that you've all been a part of. >> this validates that we can have a message, the same message connect in urban and rural and suburban communities. that we can reach out to democrats and to independents. and even to some future former republicans ready to bring change to this country. >> steve kornacki, when you hear a guy like that repeat his claim to victory. you're the keeper of the numbers, is it going to hold up? >> well, i have a feeling he's looking at this screen. because he said in here, in the

lead, buttigieg's campaign is in the lead in state delegates. there's 1700 precincts scattered throughout the state of iowa. in some cases, based on your precinct strength combined across those 1700 counties, it adds up to this total of state delegate equivalents. this is a bit like the electoral college where there's the potential for a split. and right now, with 62% of the expected vote in in iowa, that's what you're seeing, buttigieg leading the category of state delegate equivalents, when you go to the category of what folks -- what they're -- that's still a state delegate equivalent. when you go to their first preference. they showed up in their caucus sites. you can see an advantage of about 3400 votes right there, 3400 supporters. bernie sanders over pete

buttigieg. what he's benefiting from here, two things. i can show you a couple dramatic examples of it, let's take a look up here in dubuque county. this is the first preference in dubuque county. about half is in right now, when they showed up at the caucus sites so far, sanders with an advantage over buttigieg. they went to that reallocation. folks who don't make the 15% threshold, and more went to buttigieg than sanders, buttigieg ends up jumping into the lead. and there's a little bit more of an advantage from buttigieg. these precincts aren't created equally. you get a little more bang for your buck. it's a confusing formula. you see, first preference, sanders had the lead, they go through the process, buttigieg emerges with the lead. that's happening with a number of counties across the state. these are the suburbs right outside of des moines.

we'll talked so much nationally about these republican suburbs. here's a prime example. it's 34, 20, 19, 18 on the final allocation. a little different story, 27 for buttigieg. he picks up 7 points right there. you're seeing that in a number of places throughout the state. so we've got a little bit more in right now, 64%. i'm seeing if anything has changed here. you're seeing sanders lead that first preference. you're seeing sanders lead that second preference. it narrows. buttigieg is benefiting from two things. second preference isn't getting him to the lead right now. the thing that's taking him from close to the lead actually, is that scholar state equivalent allocation formula, when you apply that, buttigieg takes the lead. >> wow! chuck todd has offered to join this conversation, why i don't

know. he's in washington, happens to be moderator of "meet the press." a nation turns its lonely eyes to you, what do you make of this? >> well, look, i want to make sure people understand these aren't our numbers. most of the time we have an ability to verify some things, we don't here. we're solely relying on the democratic party in iowa for these numbers. if you look at our entrance poll, which is not associated with the iowa democratic party. you look at the precinct sampling we saw in the first round of -- before first realignment, and i will say this, i results we're showing, this match is the poll we saw last night. if you look at the polls last n.

there was only one demographic resume that was looking good, it was pete buttigieg. biden and warren and sanders all did popped one here, one there. he does real well with younger voters, biden does really well with older voters. what you show, and especially the way they allocate these state equivalents. having -- spreading your support out the way buttigieg did is why -- that's how you win these caucuses. we should remember, a whole bunch of obama veterans were part of the buttigieg team and obama did quite well in these caucuses in '08. the big news is what? the joe biden candidacy. the fact of the matter is what was iowa's job in this democratic primary. to tell us, who's going to be the leading proguess guessive

and who's going to be the leading moderate centrist. bernie beat warren. we were wondering between buttigieg, klobuchar, biden, would there be somebody that would rise? and it's buttigieg. these are the two. the question i have is what does michael bloomberg do now? he was counting on full model, he needs that now. the worst thing to happen to him. the model is good for him. he needed sanders to be stronger in this. he needed a total freakout from the establishment wing of the party. i don't think these results are going to create a total freakout of the establishment of the party. >> his name comes up every 15 seconds in the well of the senate these days and it will tomorrow. >> jason, you mentioned nevada and south carolina, i think the one fact in this race, which i still think remains is, if joe

biden wins south carolina, you would probably rather be him than anybody else barely what could prevent him from winning south carolina. if he goes 4 in iowa, 4 in new hampshire next tuesday, doesn't win nevada or come in the top two, the air could come out of the balloon, the question is, who fills that? if sanders wins all the first four, that's probably ideal for bloomberg. if you have sanders and buttigieg splitting up states, i'm not sure. you spend as much money, you should expect as amuch return for it. to be the nominee, you have to go up to 45. he's got a long way to go. but the question for biden is, if he comes in 4th in new hampshire next week, or 5th, i think the data is, if not fatal, his candidacy is going to be big trouble. i think he's got to go top two, and close and then he drops out

of the race. he if anybody. it's tragic for buttigieg he doesn't get the full view of what happens. joe biden, if he was giving that speech last night with these numbers on the screen, i think it would really harm his campaign. >> what is this going to do to biden's fundraising. >> i think it's going to hurt him. >> he's never been great at raising money the way that bernie sanders does, even elizabeth warren has donors coming to her. if this ends up being a race between mayor pete and bernie sanders. as shocking as that may have been to think about six or seven weeks ago, where do black voters go. they're not going to mayor pete. can bernie sanders get not just the vote, but the enthusiasm of

the african-american community. they're going to scream and yell, we can get this, and we're going to have this obama turn. ultimately, you're going to have one of these candidates, who gets black candidates excited. >> claire mccaskill has some math i've been looking over your shoulder. >> i've been interested in the policy stuff. we know there's a big dichotomy on the health care policy. let's do what's impracticable and achievable. medicare for only those who want it. and then there's the medicare for all folks. government, 100%, all in in, no private insurance. when you add buttigieg and biden together, they're -- right now their numbers, you get 43. when you add sanders and warren

together, you get 43. when you add amy klobuchar to the mix, you get to 56%, for the health care policies that the three of them basically share. so i look to health care to be a defining issue going-forward within the democratic party. how many voters out there want the government to do it all, and how many w to try to improve what we have. people with the on of private insurance at work. somebody may say, what about the yang voters, that gives sanders and warren one more, if you put him in the category that's not a moderate. i don't know what you call yarng, a moderate or a -- somebody who's further to the left. i thought it was fascinating that between the top 4, it's a dead tie between the two wings of the party. >> let's go to mick memally. if you listen to just 10 minutes of the impeachment hearings, any

of the speeches on the floor of the senate. sounds like they're talking about the presumptive nominee of the democratic party. the guy we saw upbeat on stage last night was flying out of there in fourth place. does thi? i know you've been listening to our conversation. what does this do to the biden campaign? or were they expecting this privately? >> well, on paper, a few weeks ago, the word from the biden campaign is actually that mayor pete winning the iowa caucuses would be a good outcome for them. they don't see him demonstrating the support you need among african-american voters going forward which joe biden continues to have. it is interesting i look at these results coming in. a point has to be made. i can't tell you how often in the last nine months, since i've been traveling to iowa and talking at the events, the other name most often on those voters' lists in terms of who they were thinking of supporting was mayor pete. not only would they say he was

potentially the second or third choice, they say something to the effect, i just saw him here a day or two ago. so these two candidates were appealing to the same voters in iowa and doing that in the same places. so these reports pittsburgh mayor pete will end up winning on those votes. the other thing is the biden advisers i was talking to in the days leading up to iowa, they were saying the best they were hoping for was a close three-way race in which no one can declare victory. instead you have a clear separation between buttigieg and sanders and then warren and biden. it is worth noting for the first time today, joe biden explicitly and relentlessly, i have to say, went after bernie sanders in a way that we hadn't seen him doing on the stump. the biden campaign was hoping for a moment, in the next few contests, the choice would be

crystallized between the bernie sanders end of the party and the joe biden end of the party. and now mayor pete will have a lot to say. going forward, if joe biden can still hold on, do well in nevada as campaign says they think he can, and win south carolina which biden himself told me just last week, it continues to be his fire wall. he still has a fighting chance and we shouldn't write him off just yet. the money issue becomes paramount. >> to steve kornacki and then chuck todd. >> we have a status on the vote returns. at the beginning, the incoming was all messed up. it seems to have stabilized at 62. what you're looking at right now is locked if for the moment. if there are going to be any more votes, any more precinct that's come in, we'll get a heads frum the iowa party. this is what they're telling us. so usually you see me standing here on election night and votes coming in from random places. it doesn't look like it will

catch me by surprise. 62% of the precincts, this is what you're seeing. to put this, we've been jumping between screens to show you one type. this is the first preference statewide. this is what's happening. on the first preference, sanders is at 24. buttigieg is at 21. biden at 15 and warren at 19. what is the the final state delegate equivalent number will look like after that entire process. and you can see, look at that. buttigieg was 21. he's jumped to 27. sanders was 25. he falls to 24. warren gains a point. 18 to 19. biden loses a point. 16-15. klobuchar is stable there at 13. i can't see at the bottom there right now but that's where you find yang and steyer. a 6-point gain for buttigieg between where folks were when they showed up and where they

ended up when you went through state delegate equivalent math. that's because of second preference and the distribution of state delegate equivalence. >> to chuck todd, is this the last iowa caucus we'll ever see? and as subset of that question, think of the people who left their homes, lives and families. some of them for no pay to devote their lives to campaigning for a candidate. think of the millions of dollars spent in good faith and high hopes that was good money after bad. a result that will always be viewed as muddled. what else could have been done with that money? what else could have been done with this amount of effort? >> yeah. i think the total will be some $300 million. for some it will be wasted. if you are other bernie sanders or pete buttigieg, and let's say you don't become president of the united states, you'll have

this what if moment for the rest of your life. rick santorum has it. he went through this. this is iowa's problem. this is three straight caucuses where the result is in doubt. right? santorum, romney in '12 on the republican side. sanders, clinton in '16 and now this. i think the caucus process has outlived its usefulness. i go maybe a small d argument about why it is healthy when you're dealing with a field of 30 candidates. as far as trying basically shove iowa, we keep trying to make iowa feel more like a primary through its weird ruse and i think that's why this whole thing blew up on us. the last thing we needed to have this happen in iowa is steve kornacki do what he just did. that is a mess. that is not faith in democracy. that is always how the caucuses

have worked but reporting all those extra numbers has only made that it much harder to understand. it is sort of like, you can see tell me how many home runs someone hits. their batting average. yeah. i'm interested in their slugging percentage. at some point i don't need 17 other stats in the world of an it willics and this is a case where the party tried too hard to deliver numbers. while they mean something in the wrong hands, they end up being misleading. >> chuck todd. sorry we trampled on your hour. it was really something to watchful steve kornacki in real-time. >> it's great for steve and i to have fun like the but not healthy for the voter. >> our coverage continues. chuck todd, our thanks, always, right after this. ways, right after this we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right,

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6:00 on the east coast. if you were watching our last hour, you saw something unique and rather incredible on live television. steve kornacki, our consense us first ballot walk on hall of fame elections expert had to do work normally associated with an entire election night in just