Iowa caucus vote totals delayed amid 'inconsistencies'; campaigns lash out at 'crazy' state party

The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) still has not reported official vote totals in the critical Iowa caucuses as of early Tuesday morning, in a largely unexplained and unprecedented delay that has raised questions about the legitimacy of the contest -- and Democratic campaign officials are livid, Fox News has learned.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, openly suggested that the delay meant that the caucuses were being "rigged," and that the embarrassing night proved that the Democratic Party can't be trusted to run Americans' health care and implement sweeping new government programs. Even if a winner were ultimately announced, the chaos and confusion has seemingly erased any hope for the major momentum boost that would normally result.
"We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results," the IDP said in a statement at 11:30 p.m. ET. "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. 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."
Fox News is told that during an initial conference call with the campaigns, an IDP representative said the party would be "getting photos of the paper results sent over," but didn't answer any questions and then hung up on all the campaigns, even as frustrated staffers pushed for answers. A campaign staffer told Fox News the IDP's brief call was "crazy."

Jeff Lopez holds his son, Tristan, 4, as they and Jeff's wife, Jessika, sit in an area for Bernie Sanders supporters during the Woodbury County Third Precinct Democratic caucus, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, at West High School in Sioux City, Iowa. Iowans across the state attended Democratic and Republican caucuses Monday. (Tim Hynds/Sioux City Journal via AP)

Another campaign official told Fox News, “Yes, they did hang up.”
During a second, equally contentious conference call early Tuesday morning, the IDP reportedly informed campaigns they could expect results sometime later on Tuesday, but gave no information about how the results would be verified or when precisely they would be published. (The 2016 Iowa caucus tallies were provided on the same day of voting, with more than 90 percent of precincts reporting by 11:00 p.m. ET that year.)
Speaking on a brief call with reporters at approximately 1:10 a.m. ET on Tuesday that lasted a little over a minute, the IDP said the system to validate electoral results was taking longer than expected, but that there had been no hack or intrusion. The IDP did not specify a precise time for results to post on Tuesday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign wrote to the IDP late Tuesday, complaining about the "considerable flaws" in the caucus reporting process. Biden, who arrived in New Hampshire early Tuesday, appeared to be dramatically underperforming at several precincts in Iowa throughout the night.
"The app that was intended to relay Caucus results to the Party failed; the Party’s back-up telephonic reporting system likewise has failed," the campaign wrote in a letter. "Now, we understand that Caucus Chairs are attempting to — and, in many cases, failing to — report results telephonically to the Party. These acute failures are occurring statewide. We appreciate that you plan to brief the campaigns momentarily on these issues, and we plan to participate. However, we believe that the campaigns deserve full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released."
Screenshots posted to social media seemingly showed crash screens from the caucus app that indicated poor programming.

"With every passing minute that there is a delay, we worry that the process will lose credibility."
— Elizabeth Warren aide

About an hour earlier, IDP spokesperson Mandy McClure said in a statement, "The integrity of the results is paramount. 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. What we know right now is that around 25% of precincts have reported, and early data indicates turnout is on pace for 2016."
However, the turnout in the 2016 Democratic caucuses in Iowa was only 171,109. That was far below the nearly 240,000 that took part in the 2008 Democratic caucuses, when then-Sen. Barack Obama won the contest -- indicating that Democrats' high hopes for enthusiasm have not panned out.

People wait for results at a caucus night campaign rally for democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher)

"With every passing minute that there is a delay, we worry that the process will lose credibility," a top Elizabeth Warren aide told CNN.
Former 2020 presidential contender Julian Castro tweeted: "This is a total mess. I respect the people of Iowa, they’ve been great—but it’s become very clear that our democracy has been misserved by a broken system."

Buttigieg declares victory -- without votes 

The void of information allowed campaigns to spin the results in their favor. Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg even said he was "victorious" early Tuesday and that Iowa had "shocked the nation," claiming the campaign's internal numbers showed he had pulled ahead.
"77 percent of our precinct captains have reported results from their caucuses," a Buttigieg aide told Fox News, noting that previous projections "had the race at a virtual tie on state delegate equivalents, but from the 77 percent of reported precincts, we’re performing 8 points better than our projections."
The aide added: "We believe we’re on our way to winning the SDE [State Delegate Equivalent] count. In the 1,301 precincts our precinct captains have reported, Pete reached viability in 1,064 (83%). For additional context, turnout returned to historical norms and we expect participation rates to wind up near 2016 levels. We found that our support in rural parts of the state was ~5% better than we expected (coming in at 28% so far.)"
Former presidiential candidate Marianne Williamson remarked incredulously from the sidelines, "Did Pete Buttigieg just claim victory in Iowa when the results haven’t been announced yet?"
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders went rogue, and released internal data that his campaign said represented vote totals 40 percent of precincts. The figures, which indicated Sanders was winning with a narrow lead over Buttigieg, were also unverified.
In a surreal moment shortly before Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took the stage at her Iowa headquarters to thank her supporters -- even as no voting results were available -- a precinct chief was being interviewed on CNN while he was on hold for more than an hour with the IDP to report results.
The IDP then hung up on the precinct chief live on-air after he was too slow to respond once they took him off hold.
At least four precincts had to resolve ties in their vote results by flipping a coin during the evening, Fox News has learned.
Speaking at 11:30 p.m. ET, Biden said he felt good about the caucus, then remarked, "So it's on to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and well beyond. We're in this for the long haul."
"I want to thank the Iowans that are here," Biden said. "Well, the Democratic Party is working to get this result to get it straight. And I want to make sure they're very careful in their deliberations. ... We're gonna walk out of here with our share of delegates. We don't know exactly what it is yet, but we feel good about where we are."
Taking the microphone ten minutes later, Sanders said that when the results were in, he had a "good feeling we're going to be doing very very well here in Iowa."
Nearing midnight local time, the bar at Sanders headquarters was packed, and the crowd had not thinned at all.
Klobuchar's team, for their part, sounded its own note of optimism.
"Big night in Iowa," Klobuchar campaign chairman Justin Buoen wrote on Twitter. "With the numbers we’ve seen internally and publicly, we’re running even or ahead of Vice President Biden. Wheels up to New Hampshire!”

Trump team mocks 'rigged' vote

Before voting began, the IDP had announced that for the first time ever, it would report three sets of results at the end of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses: a tally of caucus-goers’ initial candidate preference; vote totals from the “final alignment” after supporters of lower-ranking candidates were able to make a second choice, and the total number of State Delegate Equivalents each candidate receives. There was no guarantee that all three will show the same winner.
By the end of the night, it became clear that there was no guarantee there would be any winner at all.
In social media posts, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had boasted that it had been "preparing" for the Iowa process "for three years" to make the primary process "the most transparent" ever.
As the situation broke down minute by minute, the Trump campaign mocked the delay on Twitter, even as it celebrated the huge crowds at GOP caucuses in the state that showed up to vote for the president.
"Quality control = rigged?" asked Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.
“Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history," Parscale said in a statement just after midnight. "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?"
Parscale added: "Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent.”
For his part, with just hours to go until his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump tweeted only, "Big WIN for us in Iowa tonight. Thank you!"
"If the Democrats can’t run a #caucus that they had four years to prepare for, how the hell can anyone think they could actually run the country?" Donald Trump, Jr., tweeted.

Sanders supporters storm out

The drama began unfolding late Monday, as the night wound on without any official vote figures released. In one precinct, Sanders reportedly won by 20 points, but received only one delegate -- along with four other candidates.
Sanders supporters called the situation a "joke" and stormed out, according to The Washington Examiner's Philip Klein.
Each candidate has to meet a threshold of 15 percent to be considered viable in each precinct. That means the number of people backing a candidate has to be at least 15 percent of the total number of people in the room at the local caucus.
For example, if there are 100 people in the room and 14 are backing a particular candidate, that candidate is not considered viable. If a candidate is determined to be not viable, that contender’s supporters would be given the opportunity to support another candidate in the next round.

Caucus goers check in at a caucus at Roosevelt High School, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

An adviser to Biden told Fox News he was watching the caucus coverage with his family in Des Moines, and that the entry polls they’ve seen lined up with what the campaign was expecting -- although it wasn't clear what polls the adviser was referring to.
"Joe's had Iowa to himself," Donald Trump, Jr., told Bloomberg News Monday night, alluding to Biden's ability to campaign in the state while Warren and Klobuchar stayed in Washington, D.C. for Senate impeachment proceedings. "If he doesn't win big tonight, I think that's very indicative of his campaign."
In an unexpected move, almost all of the caucus-goers for the nonviable candidates at the Drake University precinct in Des Moines teamed up for Cory Booker, who has already dropped out of the presidential race. The caucus-goers told Fox News tactic was designed to keep delegates always from the viable candidates.
There were 402 caucus-goers after the first alignment, and three reached viability: Warren with 120, Buttigieg with 101, and Sanders with 100. The nonviable were Andrew Yang with 33, Biden with 17, Klobuchar with 24, and Tom Steyer with 1.
The precinct leaders for the nonviable candidates told Fox News the strategy was purely decided among the caucus-goers at the Drake University precinct and did not represent a statewide strategy dictated by the campaigns.

Precinct 55 in downtown Des Moines. 1,080 people showed up -- far more than expected. (Paul Steinhauser, Fox News)

Ultimately, ‪Warren and Buttigieg each received 2 delegates from the Drake precinct, and Sanders and Booker each received 1.
A member of the Buttigieg campaign, meanwhile, told Fox News, "We’re reaching into every demographic and across cities, suburbs, and rural areas, and communities, including [Barack] Obama counties that flipped to [Donald] Trump in 2016. That’s a good sign for accumulating delegates, but also makes the case that Pete’s uniquely positioned to take on Donald Trump."
The Buttigieg advisor added: "The best data point [in the entry polls] is that Pete’s leading with new caucus-goers."
Late in the evening, at 10:45 p.m. ET, the Buttigieg team told Fox News the IDP wasn't in touch concerning the delay in posting the results.

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg stand at a caucus site at Roosevelt Hight School, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

A senior Klobuchar official separately told Fox News the campaign was very happy with early indicators, and that she was showing “more strength than we were expecting in some areas."
The Klobuchar team also said the IDP hasn't kept them in the loop concerning the delayed vote results.

Votes from Scotland

The action was taking place at 1,679 precincts across the state – held in school gymnasiums, church basements, union halls, community centers, libraries and other locations.
This year, there was another new twist: Iowa Democrats who couldn't make it to their local caucus site were able to take part at one of the additional 987 additional satellite caucuses across the state, the country and the globe.
These new satellite caucuses took place at factories, firehouses, group homes or community gathering places. The new option should help shift workers, Iowans with disabilities and those serving overseas take part.

Caucus goers check in at a caucus at Roosevelt High School, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Only registered Democrats were allowed to take part in the Democratic caucuses.
Dr. Jane Sanders, the wife of Bernie Sanders, told Fox News Monday evening that although Hillary Clinton narrowly bested her husband in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, this year would be different.
"In 2016, he was just getting to be known by the people of Iowa," she said. "They didn't know him. Now they've watched him over the last four years, never back down on the issues that he talked about, that he continued to work on. And I think they know that he is there for the right reasons to improve their quality of life, to have more fairness and equity and justice in our country, both racial, social, economic, environmental justice."
Some of the earliest results of the Iowa caucuses trickled in from thousands of miles away earlier in the day.
In Glasgow, Scotland, Sanders won the most support in a small, satellite caucus for Iowans living abroad.
Sanders received support from nine of the 19 caucus-goers who attended. Warren ended up with six supporters, and Buttigieg had three. (The last attendee didn't support a candidate.)
The other candidates were not viable. Biden received no votes. The results can hardly be considered meaningful -- some 200,000 people are expected to caucus Monday night.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign stop at Hiatt Middle School, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

This is the first time Iowa Democrats have held caucuses outside Iowa. The remote sites are intended to make the caucuses more inclusive to Iowans living out of state or abroad.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said Monday he has no regrets on skipping the Iowa caucuses.
The billionaire former New York City mayor was campaigning in California as his rivals for the Democratic nomination prepared for the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.

Directional signs are posted on doors at a caucus at Roosevelt Hight School, Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Bloomberg suggested that his rivals were falling behind in the race. He noted in Compton that he has made stops in 24 states and 60 cities while the other candidates have been hunkered down in Iowa.
He'd like to think he's a few steps ahead. “I hope so,” Bloomberg said.
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser, Ellison Barber, Nicholas Kalman, Andres del Aguila, Bill Hemmer, Jacqui Heinrich and Peter Doocy in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report, as well as The Associated Press.

John Kerry Cartoons

The best and worst of Super Bowl ads

NEW YORK (AP) — During advertising’s biggest night, Super Bowl Sunday, marketers battled it out to bolster their brands and promote new products. Advertisers paid up to $5.6 million for 30 seconds, and almost 100 million people tune into the big game.

This year, Hyundai and Jeep scored with whimsical humor by poking fun at Boston accents and reuniting the “Groundhog Day” cast, Punxsutawney Phil included. Google struck heartstrings with a quiet message about aging and remembrance. Cheetos and Doritos both played off exaggerated dancing to good effect.

But Pop Tarts and a Hard Rock action-movie commercial failed to connect with viewers.

BEST

HYUNDAI

The automaker released its ad early, but it still drew fans during the game. Boston-affiliated celebrities including actor Chris Evans, John Krasinski, Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch and former Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz discussed a Hyundai feature that lets car owners park remotely with exaggerated accents that make “Smart Park” sound like “smaht pahk.”

JEEP

Super Bowl Sunday was on Groundhog Day, so someone had to do it. Fiat Chrysler painstakingly recreated the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day,” including the town square and other locales, with original actors Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray and Stephen Tobolowsky. The twist: instead of a Chevrolet truck, Murray uses a Jeep Gladiator truck. FCA Group marketing chief Olivier Francois said the ad worked to demonstrate the versatility of the Jeep truck since Murray does something different every day.

GOOGLE

Google’s 90-second ad stood out by not using humor or celebrities. It features a man reminiscing about his wife, using the Google Assistant feature to pull up old photos of her and past vacations. The ad is set to an instrumental version of “Say Something” by Great Big World. “It’s so hard to write earnestly and not make it cheesy,” said Julia Neumann, executive creative director at ad agency TBWA(backslash)Chiat(backslash)Day in New York. “This was really, really well done.”

CHEETOS

Cheetos used nostalgia effectively, appropriating the 30 year old MC Hammer classic “U Can’t Touch This” — still an earworm after all these years. The snack-food ad features a man with bright orange Cheetos dust on his hands who uses it as an excuse not to move furniture and perform office tasks. Hammer himself — “Hammer pants” and all — also kept popping up to utter his iconic catchphrase.

DORITOS

The brand added a silly danceoff to “Old Town Road,” the smash hit of the summer by Lil Nas X. In the Western-themed ad, Lil Nas faced off with grizzled character actor Sam Elliott with silly, sometimes CGI-enhanced dances moves at the “Cool Ranch.” Billy Cyrus, who features in the song’s remix, also made a cameo.

PLANTERS

Planters teased its Super Bowl ad nearly two weeks before the game, releasing a teaser that showed its Mr. Peanut mascot seemingly being killed. The “death” of Mr. Peanut went viral on Twitter. But when Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, the marketing stunt suddenly seemed insensitive, so Planters paused its pre-game advertising. The actual Super Bowl ad was relatively inoffensive, with a baby Mr. Peanut appearing at the funeral. “Baby Nut” comparisons to “Baby Yoda” and “Baby Groot” sprung up online.

WORST

AVOCADOS FROM MEXICO

Avocados from Mexico have carved out a niche with humorous ads featuring avocados, but they may have veered a little too far into “random” territory with this effort featuring a home shopping network with fake products such as a baby carrier-like device for avocados. “I thought the Avocados from Mexico spot felt like a random and gratuitous use of celebrity,” said Steve Merino, chief creative officer of Aloysius, Butler & Clark in Wilmington, Delaware. “Not only did it not make sense to have Molly Ringwald as your spokesperson, it was also a bit of a distraction.”

POP TARTS

Kellogg’s went for quirky but ended up with a bland spot that isn’t likely to be remembered. In a pseudo infomercial, Jonathan Van Ness of “Queer Eye” describes the new Pop Tarts pretzel snack. The idea is that Pop Tarts adds pizazz to pretzels, but the ad itself failed to have much spark.

SQUARESPACE

Winona Ryder went back to Winona, Minnesota — which she is named after — to create a website for the town. But nothing much happened in the ad, which shows Ryder in a snowdrift on her laptop being confronted by a “Fargo”-like cop. There’s a more involved marketing campaign with Ryder, but the Super Bowl ad didn’t communicate much.

HARD ROCK INTERNATIONAL

Hard Rock International went all in on its first Super Bowl ad, maybe too much so. It enlisted Michael Bay for a frenetic commercial showing a frenzied heist caper involving Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, and Steven Van Zandt — but some found it hard to follow.

John Kerry, in now-deleted expletive-laced tweet, addresses report he was overheard planning 2020 run

Former Secretary of State John Kerry was reportedly overheard in a hotel restaurant Sunday warning of the very real "possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party -- down whole," according to an NBC News report that sent shockwaves through an already-fractured liberal constituency bracing for a potentially historic Sanders win in Monday's pivotal Iowa caucuses.
Kerry, in the Renaissance Savery Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, on the eve of the caucus vote, also reportedly remarked that "maybe I'm f---ing deluding myself here," but that he could conceivably launch a run for president now that donors "have the reality of Bernie" surging in the polls.
Kerry, who is in town as a Joe Biden surrogate, added that donors such as venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to "raise a couple of million," and that he would need to leave the board of Bank of America and stop giving paid speeches.
Immediately after the report broke, Kerry fired off a tweet with an uncharacteristic expletive, as he didn't outright deny that he had been overheard by the reporter saying Sanders posed an existential threat to the Democratic Party.
He did deny saying he could run or was running for president.
"As I told the reporter, I am absolutely not running for President," Kerry wrote on Twitter. "Any report otherwise is f---ing (or categorically) false. I’ve been proud to campaign with my good friend Joe Biden, who is going to win the nomination, beat Trump, and make an outstanding president."

Former Secretary of State John Kerry arrives at a campaign stop for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden at the South Slope Community Center, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020, in North Liberty, Iowa. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Kerry then quickly deleted the tweet and reposted it without the profanity.
He separately told NBC News:  "This is a complete and total misinterpretation based on overhearing only one side of a phone conversation. A friend who watches too much cable called me wondering whether I’d ever jump into the race late in the game if Democrats were choosing an unelectable nominee. I listed all the reasons I could not possibly do that and would not -- and will not under any circumstances -- do that."
Incredulous commentators and reporters faulted Kerry for the blunder, even as they recognized that his apparent panic was emblematic of the state of the establishment Democratic Party.
"I don't know who needs to hear this, but the lobby of the Renaissance Savery in Des Moines the day before the Iowa caucuses is *not* the place to have private conversations," said Brianne Pfannenstiel, a reporter with the Des Moines Register.
Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity during the Super Bowl LIV pregame show, President Trump asserted that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was "rigging the election again" against "crazy Bernie,' after the DNC announced it would change debate rules in a way that would help Mike Bloomberg appear on stage.
Trump also warned that the left-wing of the Democratic Party is insurgent, and would soon unseat establishment figures. Sanders is backed by prominent far-left-wing Democrats including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
"I think she's a very confused, very nervous woman," Trump said, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, who reluctantly announced impeachment proceedings last year after months of resisting the progressive wing of her party.
"I don't think she wanted to do this," Trump continued, concerning impeachment. "I think she really knew what was going to happen, and her worst nightmare has happened. I don't think she's gonna be there too long, either. I think that the radical left -- and she's sorta radical left too, by the way -- but I think the radical left is gonna take over."
At the same time, Trump made clear he had no love for more established Democratic insiders, either, remarking that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is quite short.
"You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on," Trump said. "OK, it’s OK, there’s nothing wrong. You can be short. Why should he get a box to stand on, OK? He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled to that? Really. Does that mean everyone else gets a box? ... I would love to run against Bloomberg."

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020, in Dubuque, Iowa. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

As the drama unfolded, Democratic presidential candidates hustled across the state on Sunday trying to fire up voters and make one last appeal to those struggling to make a final decision about their choice in the crowded field.
Campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin choosing which candidate to send on to a November face-off with Trump.
The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Monday’s caucus, with four candidates locked in a fight for victory in Iowa and others still in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes. Many voters say they're still weighing which White House hopeful they'll support.
“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign.
Polls show Biden in a tight race in Iowa with Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.

Attendees cheer as Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a campaign event at Northwest Junior High, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2020, in Coralville, Iowa. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Many campaigns were looking to a final weekend poll to provide some measure of clarity. But late Saturday night, CNN and The Des Moines Register opted not to release the survey because of worries the results may have been compromised.
New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.
The new rules were mandated by the Democratic National Committee as part of a package of changes sought by Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The revisions were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive.
But party officials in Iowa and at the DNC have privately expressed concerns that but multiple campaigns will spin the results in their favor, potentially creating chaos on caucus night.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iowa caucuses: Who is ahead in the polls heading into Monday

The Democratic race is unusually large heading into Monday’s Iowa caucuses, with four presidential candidates locked in a fight for victory in Iowa and others still in a position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes.
Many campaigns were looking to final weekend polls to provide some measure of clarity.
Polls show former Vice President Joe Biden in a tight race in Iowa with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and entrepreneur Andrew Yang also are competing aggressively in the state.
An Emerson College poll released Sunday night found Sanders leading with 28 percent support, Biden at 21 percent, Buttigieg at 15 percent, Warren at 14 percent and Klobuchar at 11 percent.
A CBS News poll had Biden and Sanders holding the lead with 25 percent each, Buttigieg with 21 percent, Warren at 16 percent and Klobuchar at 5 percent.
Late Saturday, a final CNN and Des Moines Register poll opted not to release their survey because of concerns that the results may have been compromised.
For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night, who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice, and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.
The new rules were mandated by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as part of a package of changes sought by Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The revisions were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive. But party officials in Iowa and at the DNC have privately expressed concerns that multiple campaigns will spin the results in their favor, potentially creating chaos on caucus night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Roberts, the Senate establish a new precedent during Trump’s impeachment trial

So much of politics is scripted.
So much of what we’ve seen over the past week or so in the Senate trial of President Trump was not.
The outcome of President Trump’s trial was settled long ago. Try 1787. That’s when the Founders finished the Constitution, asserting in Article I, Section 3 that it would take “two-thirds” of the Senate to convict and remove someone from office.
It was clear long ago that the contemporary Senate wouldn’t have anything close to 67 votes to bounce President Trump from office. But how everyone navigated the trial waters was mostly unscripted.
Take the issue of witnesses. It was far from clear last week if the Senate would summon witnesses. It would come down to less than a handful of votes. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) were well documented in their support for witnesses. Republicans now hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate. So the attrition of Collins and Romney likely brought the vote tally on the witness gateway to just 51. In play were Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). But it was thought that Collins and Romney may constitute the entire universe of GOPers willing to open the door to witnesses.
The gateway vote on witnesses could have presented the Senate with a rabbit warren of options for what would happen next in the trial. If the Senate agreed to the witness gateway, would that just be it? Would the Senate only support the concept of witnesses – but vote to reject various slates of witnesses or individual witnesses? That’s why the gateway vote last week was so important. Democrats obviously pushed for witnesses – most significantly, former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Many Republicans thought they’d like to hear from former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. But the gateway vote on witnesses was like opening a parliamentary wormhole. If the Senate approved the motion to theoretically call witnesses, then senators never truly knew where’d they come out on the other side. \
Would this extend the trial for weeks? Months? So much for a quick acquittal for the President, pushed by many of the President’s loyalists. Sure, some GOPers thought it would be amusing if not politically helpful to drag the Bidens into the Senate to testify. But in the minds of Mr. Trump’s Senate supporters, was testimony from the Bidens more important than clearing the chief executive expeditiously? The same with the idea of calling the whistleblower. Lots of Republicans liked to talk a good game about hearing from and exposing the name of the whistleblower. But to what political end? Incinerating national security law? Annihilating whistleblower statutes which many senators worked so hard to pass over the years? Exposing persons who work undercover in the national security community?
The idea of voting to have the whistleblower testify was never going to happen. But it was sure a good way for some Republicans to gin up their base and call into question what lead impeachment manager and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) or his staff allegedly knew about the whistleblower.
One more vote in favor of witnesses would present the Senate with a tie on the gateway vote. By rule, tie votes in the Senate lose. Would Chief Justice John Roberts vote to break the tie? Senate impeachment rules note that the role of the Vice President – who is eligible to break other ties in the Senate – “devolved” in an impeachment trial. So there would be no role or possibility of the Vice President breaking a tie. In President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial in 1868, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase broke two of three ties in the Senate. Could Roberts break a tie in this instance and prolong the trial, forcing witnesses?
Unclear. And, in real time, senators were looking at what an elongated trial may mean. President Trump’s counsel Jay Sekulow argued that calling witnesses would “take a long time” and may consume Senate business “for months.”
Schiff disputed this, suggesting they could call and depose witnesses in a week.
That’s a nod to what the Senate did in 2018 when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to raise questions about the conduct of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process. After much debate and negotiation, the Senate postponed a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh until the FBI completed a probe of Blasey Ford’s allegation. The supposition was that if Republican senators were willing to pause Kavanaugh’s confirmation for a week, then surely they could take a week to hear from witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
It was also a red herring that calling witnesses would devour all Senate business. If the Senate voted to call witnesses, it’s likely the trial would go dark on the floor for a week or two. Maybe just meet in trial session for a few minutes each day as the Senate took the depositions offstage. Senate impeachment rules don’t require the trial to meet until 1 pm et each day. So it’s possible the Senate could still debate and vote on legislation and nominations either before or after the trial sessions during this period.
But, it turns out, the Senate lacked the votes to swing open the gateway to the possibility of witnesses. Lamar Alexander announced his opposition to the witness option. Lisa Murkowski followed suit the next day. The Senate wouldn’t call witnesses.
That left the Senate with but a handful of unanswered questions: When would the Senate finish the trial? Would any Republicans vote to remove Mr. Trump? Would any Democrats vote to acquit the President?
We now have an answer to the first question. The Senate will vote sometime after 4 pm et Wednesday on both articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It’s unclear if we will know how everyone will vote until just before the Senate takes those roll call tallies. But Friday afternoon – once the Senate knew the math on the witness question, there wasn’t an obvious answer to how it got from point A to point C.
Many Republican senators and the White House wanted to conclude the trial Friday night or in the wee hours of Saturday morning. On Capitol Hill, when you have the votes, you move, regardless of the hour. You don’t tempt fate. There’s a reason why the Senate voted on the first version of Obamacare before dawn on Christmas Eve morning in 2009. You never know when some new allegation may come tumbling in over the transom to alter the calculus.
But, here was the problem. The Senate had heard nothing but arguments from the impeachment managers and Mr. Trump’s defense counsel for weeks now on the floor. Would the Senate suddenly just call votes on the articles of impeachment without allowing senators to actually speak and debate on the floor the guilt or innocence of the President?
So, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held off on the witness gateway vote until late Friday afternoon. It was only then that he could secure an agreement between GOPers and Democrats on how to finish the trial. It wouldn’t wrap over the weekend. Things would extend through late Wednesday – punctuated by President Trump’s State of the Union speech in the middle.
Some GOPers wanted the President cleared before the Tuesday address. But Democrats noted that President Clinton presented a State of the Union message during his impeachment trial in 1999.
There was naturally some grumbling from those close to the President.
“It’s a terrible thing,” said one source familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking. “(Republican) senators should have stayed in on Saturday. They got rolled.”
But McConnell was hamstrung on having the votes to finish the trial immediately.
“It was the best deal McConnell could get,” said one Republican source. “The Administration is pleased that this is the best the Republican Senate could do to shorten the process.”
White House Director of Legislative Affairs Eric Ueland put a different spin on things. Ueland thought having State of the Union one night – followed by the trial verdicts – would boost Mr. Trump.
“It’s a strong, one-two punch to have the State of the Union with a clear vision, clear agenda and clear focus for 2020 followed immediately by acquittal on this fake articles of impeachment the next day,” said Ueland.
And even though it was a moot point by the weekend, we finally got some clarity as to if John Roberts could break a tie in the Senate trial.
A book of 44 “standing rules” govern Senate practice. But what is more voluminous is a catalogue for thousands of Senate “precedents.” In fact, the Senate conducts much of its business based on precedent. So on Friday night, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) posed a parliamentary inquiry to Roberts as to whether he could break ties in an impeachment trial. Roberts answered Schumer from the dais.
“I think it would be inappropriate for me, an unelected official from a different branch of government, to assert the power to change that result so that the motion would succeed,” declared Roberts.
And with that, Roberts and the Senate established a new precedent.
We already know the outcome of President Trump’s impeachment trial. And now we know if there is ever another impeachment trial, the Chief Justice can’t break ties because of the precedent established in Mr. Trump’s tribunal by Roberts.