Trump Campaign on Iowa Democratic Caucus: ‘Sloppiest Train Wreck in History’

February 4, 2020

President Trump’s campaign issued a statement late Monday mocking the Democratic party for its handling of the Iowa caucus results, calling the delay in reporting of results “the sloppiest train wreck in history.”

“Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history,” Trump re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “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?”

“Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent,” he added.

The statement from the Trump campaign comes as the Iowa Democratic Party chalking up the delay of results as “quality checks” due to the party’s decision to report three totals this year. A new mobile app was introduced to expedite the process, calculate and assign delegates and report results back quickly, but precinct chairs began experience major problems in functionality that caused slow reporting.

“We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the IDP is reporting out three data sets for the first time,” Mandy McClure, the state party’s communications director, said in a statement. “We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report.

The party added that no “hack or intrusion” were involved in the holdup.

“This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results,” McClure said.

The Iowa Democratic Party is releasing three sets of data this year — a tally of state delegate equivalents, an estimated number of delegates candidates have won to the state convention based on their results in each precinct; a second tally of first alignment, a total number of people at each precinct that lined up with each candidate at the start of the caucuses and a third tally of second alignment of supporters choosing a different candidate if their preferred candidate fall shorts of 15%.

Jeff Kaufmann, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, which did not report any issues in the GOP caucuses, said the Iowa Democratic Party should take its time to ensure the “results are correct rather than quick.”

President Trump was quickly projected the winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses, beating candidates Joe Walsh, a conservative radio host and former member of Congress, and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld with 97% of the votes.