MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Democrat candidate Andrew Yang was overheard Friday calling the results of the Iowa Caucus “weird,” after the Iowa Democrat Party failed to announce a winner for days due to technology and other errors.
“That whole thing was so weird to me,” he said after the eighth Democrat debate. “It’s like — an app failure, that’s not ideal, but alright. You can imagine it,” he added, seeming to suggest more was at play.
Yang was talking to another person, possibly a staffer on his campaign, whose response was partially inaudible.
Yang then joked, “Maybe everyone will see what happened in Iowa, and be like, ‘Our jobs are safe.'” It is not exactly clear what he meant, but he frequently warned about technology automation replacing workers.
After the February 4 caucus failed to yield results that evening, Yang first tweeted, “It might be helpful to have a President and government that understand technology so this sort of thing doesn’t happen.”
Some suggested he was blaming President Trump, but he could also have been suggesting that he would be a president who would understand technology.
One of Yang’s top campaign issues was automation, and the need for a universal basic income of $1,000 per month for every adult in America so that they could retrain.
Yang announced he was ending his presidential campaign on Tuesday, after the New Hampshire primary.
The Iowa Caucus results were delayed for days after an app the Iowa Democrat Party paid tens of thousands of dollars for failed, and after a hotline where precinct chiefs could call to deliver results got tied up for hours.
There were also other human errors, such as adding delegates to the wrong candidate, according to the New York Times.
The app was designed by a company called “Shadow” that was launched by Democrat digital organization Acronym, which 2020 Democrat candidate Pete Buttigieg’s campaign also paid tens of thousands of dollars to last July.
Buttigieg was the first to declare victory in Iowa, leading some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), to call him, “Mayor Cheat.” Sanders was expected to emerge the winner in Iowa, but he was awarded fewer delegates than Buttigieg after several days.
Iowa Democrat Party Chairman Troy Price said at a press conference on Monday that it was re-canvassing and recounting the results, but no timeline was given.
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