'What a goddamn mess': Democratic activists are furious about the catastrophe in Iowa

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Images

Ari Rabin-Havt, deputy campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to the media about the delay in releasing caucus results late Monday, Feb. 3, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa.

• None of the 2020 candidates walked away with a win on the night of the Iowa caucus as a malfunctioning reporting app and consequent chaos threw a wrench in the process and delayed the results.
• Democratic activists are incensed that an already complex system of voting was undermined further by a mobile app that reported incomplete information to party officials and pushed the count into Tuesday.
• "This is a complete and total shibacle," Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist who's working with former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign, told Insider late Monday night. "It's hard to have a lot of confidence right now in any result."
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After many months - and in some cases more than a year - of campaigning, the Democratic presidential candidates made their final pitches in Iowa as voters caucused in the small Midwestern state on Monday night.

But it soon became clear that none of the candidates would walk away with a win on the night of the caucus as a malfunctioning reporting app and consequent chaos consumed the process and delayed the results.

For years, observers and participants in the caucuses have criticized the inefficient, turnout-depressing process in the first primary state, where coin flips and scenes of people reorganizing in middle school gyms are common. But Democratic activists are incensed that an already complex system of voting was undermined further by a mobile app that reported incomplete information to party officials and pushed the count into Tuesday.

"This is a complete and total shibacle," Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist who's working with former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign, told Insider late Monday night. "It's hard to have a lot of confidence right now in any result."

"What a goddman mess," Ian Russell, the former deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Insider.

Calls to end Iowa's reign as the first-in-the-nation contest intensified on Monday night and Tuesday. Some declared this year's debacle would also ensure the caucuses are replaced with a standard primary process.

"How does the Iowa delegation go before the Democratic National Committee in hopefully seven years time, but potentially three years time, and try to maintain its exulted status in the calendar?" Russell said. "There were already a lot of people waiting in the long grass for them and now there's going to be even more."

Russell argued that because former President Barack Obama's Iowa win "poured rocket fuel on his prospects" Obama wasn't in a good position to advocate moving the caucus. But this year's chaos ensures no one candidate fight too hard to maintain Iowa's powerful position.

Iowa failed in its sole task: to deliver clarity for and about the many candidates still in the race.

"Fundamentally what is needed to winnow this field is information about what voters want," Sean McElwee, a New York-based Democratic activist and pollster, told Insider. "Iowa gave us very little, meaning we are potentially going into Super Tuesday with five viable candidates."

David Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager, told MSNBC, "We may be witnessing the last Iowa caucus."

Prominent Democrats similarly condemned the chaos in Iowa.

"It's become clear that this Iowa Caucus has been a total mess," said Julián Castro, a former Democratic presidential contender who dropped out of the race and endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren last month. "It's been a complete failure."

Castro has become a vocal proponent for reforming the presidential primary process so that Iowa, a conservative state and one of the least racially diverse in the country, doesn't go first in the nominating process.

Others, though, urged calm.

"It's important to keep in mind that accuracy is of utmost priority and there is a proper trail system," Adrienne Elrod, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, told Insider. "The system is working - it's just taking longer than initially anticipated."

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