On To New Hampshire, Leaving Behind A Mess In Iowa

And when breaking things down by county, Pete Buttigieg took 58, Bernie Sanders won 20, Joe Biden came out ahead in eight, Amy Klobuchar picked up five (mainly along the border with her home state of Minnesota), Elizabeth Warren won a single county, and seven other counties ended up in ties.

So, the question remains: who won? Sander claims to have won a “very strong victory” while Buttigieg also claimed victory based on delegate and county wins. Politico has a very good breakdown of all the data for you to try and make up your own mind. But, every candidate has called into question the results and the way the caucuses where run overall. Put simply, it was a complete debacle from beginning to end.

Which means it’s now on to New Hampshire, where Sanders and Buttigieg are now seen as the co-frontrunners while both Warren and Biden are facing some serious questions about the campaign strategies. Aside from Friday night’s debate, which was a bit more boisterous that usual, we have the five most recent polls to try and divine how things might turn out.

	Emerson	Suffolk	WHDH	Bos. Globe	NBC	Average
Sanders	32	24	31	24	25	27.2
Buttigieg	23	23	24	25	21	23.2
Warren	13	13	11	14	14	13
Biden	11	11	11	11	13	11.4
Klobuchar	9	6	9	6	8	7.6

But then things change quite a bit, both geographically and demographically, as the nomination process moves out west to Nevada and then down south to South Carolina. In Nevada, Biden has a near seven-point lead over Sanders — 25.6% to 19% — with Warren in third place at 16.2%. And in South Carolina, Biden’s lead is even stronger, leading Sanders 31.6% to 15.8%. And interestingly, Tom Steyer has come on very strong in the two most recent polls there, climbing into third place with 12.4% support of state voters, ahead of Warren.

So, polishing up our crystal ball, it’s entirely conceivable that once we get to Super Tuesday, there could be three self-proclaimed front-runners in Sanders, Buttigieg, and Biden. And that’s when things get real interesting as that’s when Michael Bloomberg shows up on state ballots for the first time.

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