Iowa Caucus Results: Buttigieg Still Leads With 71% Reporting, Big Success For LGBTQ Community

Update: 3:30 p.m. EST

With 75% of precincts reporting, Buttigieg led with 26.9% of the vote, followed by Bernie Sanders with 25.2%, Elizabeth Warren with 18.2% and Joe Biden with 15.6%. The only other candidate in double digits was Amy Klobuchar with 12.5%. Businessman Andrew Yang garnered 1%. The rest of the field was at zero.

Original story

Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay person to take a shot at the U.S. presidency, could win the Iowa caucus.

In an earthshaking result no poll predicted, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana took 26.8 percent of the votes as of 1:08 a.m. ET Wednesday with 71 percent of precints reporting. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, came second with 25.2 percent; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA has 18.4 percent; while former vice president Joe Biden, the odds-on early favorite to win Iowa, was fourth with 15.5 percent. There are 41 delegates at stake in the Iowa caucus.

Historically, the Democratic candidate that wins Iowa ends-up winning the party's nomination. The same held true for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who beat Sanders here by the narrowest of margins.

Buttigieg raised eyebrows by claiming victory early on despite the bungled counting process that saw votes only being released Tuesday morning instead of Monday evening. The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) spent nearly an entire day getting the tallies out after a smartphone app malfunction delayed the reporting of results.

With confusion rife after the IDP failed to reveal the results of the caucus on Monday night, Buttigieg took the enormously audacious step of declaring his victory in Iowa a few hours later. Initial results that were finally revealed late Tuesday afternoon seem to indicate he might have had a point.

With his supporters behind him shouting, "President Pete! President Pete!" Buttigieg told his people he had won.

“We don’t know all the results,” said Buttigieg. "But we know, by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation, because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

Asked by CNN later about what his victory means, Buttigieg replied, "It's extraordinary."

"It also, I hope, means something to a lot of people wondering if they fit in, people who are different, people who don't know if they belong in their community or in their family. This is a proof that you can believe in yourself and in your country."

With 62 percent of 99 counties reporting as of 4:40 p.m. ET Tuesday, Buttigieg took 26.9 percent of the votes counted. He was followed by Sanders with 25.1 percent, Warren with 18.3 percent and Biden with 15.6 percent. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, got 12.6 percent. Andrew Yang got 1.1 percent and businessman Tom Steyer got 0.3 percent.

Speaking later in New Hampshire, Buttigieg mused about what his apparent win means to LGBTQ youth across the country.

"This validates the idea that we can have a message, the same message, connect in urban and rural and suburban communities, that we can reach out to Democrats, and to independents, and even to some future former Republicans, ready to bring change to this country."

For Buttigieg personally, his win "validates for a kid somewhere in a community wondering if he belongs or she belongs or they belong in their own family, that if you believe in yourself and your country, there is a lot backing up the belief."