Democratic strategist Estuardo Rodriguez defended former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg for declaring a victory in Iowa before the official caucus results were released.
Rodriguez, a principal at the Raben Group, argued Tuesday that Buttigieg was trying to fire up his base and keep up the energy for his campaign.
“Whether he’s wrong, does it even matter at this point?” Rodriguez asked. “There’s no information out there and you want to keep the energy up. You want to move on to the next state.”
Rodriguez’s comments come after Buttigieg claimed a “victorious” night following the Iowa caucus, pointing to internal campaign results. Following backlash, the former mayor defended his decision, saying “something extraordinary happened last night.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also signaled a victory despite a lack of firm results, and released his campaign’s own internal polling, which showed him in the lead.
“When those results are announced, I have a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa,” he told supporters.
Democrats, meanwhile, are still waiting for the results of the highly-anticipated, first-in-the nation caucus, which resulted in no clear winner as of Tuesday afternoon.
The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) announced that a majority of the caucus results will be released at 5 p.m Eastern.
The state party has blamed the delay on a new mobile app that was being used to report the results. Amid increasing pressure to release the results, the IDP maintained that the glitches have not affected the accuracy of the results.
— Tess Bonn
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