Former Vice President Joe Bidden placed fourth in the Iowa Caucuses, according to partial results from the race released by the Iowa Democrat Party on Tuesday.
Biden, who had been trailing his opponents in the leadup to the race, failed to make up the difference on caucus day. With only 62 percent of the precincts reporting, the former vice president garnered 15.6 percent of the delegates. Although the results are still subject to change as the state party releases further precinct counts, Biden trailed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) by a wide popular vote margin.
The partial results, although by no means final, do not bode well for the former vice president. Despite at one point leading the field by double digits in Iowa, Biden, who has been in politics for decades, is likely to finish the contest behind the political newcomer Buttigieg. Complicating matters is Biden and a Super PAC working on his behalf spent heavily in the weeks ahead of the caucus in hopes of creating a last minute surge. All of that spending seems to have had little impact.
In the popular vote, the former vice president (14,176) trailed Sanders (28,220) and Buttigieg (27,030) by double digits and Warren (22,254) by nearly double digits, with 62 percent reporting.
Biden’s poor showing may be the reason his campaign has attempted to dismiss the caucuses, even before the results were clear. On Monday evening, after the Iowa Democrat Party announced it would have to delay the results because of a technical issue, the former vice president made public a letter it wrote to Democrat leaders. In the letter, Biden’s team claimed there were “considerable flaws” in the reporting process that were likely to undermine the results.
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