Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN, the last candidate to visit Greene County before the Feb. 3 caucus, was the pic of 112 of the 339 Democrats – 33 percent – of the Democrats who caucused. He and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders were the only candidates to be viable in all seven of the county’s precincts. Buttigieg and Sanders came out of the caucus in first and second place. Perhaps the surprise bigger than Buttigieg’s good support was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s lack of support. Warren met the threshold for viability in only one precinct, the central precinct. She finished the evening with 16 votes, enough to have one delegate at the March 21 county convention.
Greene County totals were Buttigieg, 112; Sanders, 94; Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, 76; vice president Joe Biden, 53; and Warren, 16. The delegate count at the county convention will be Buttigieg 17, Sanders 15, Klobuchar 10, Biden six, and Warren, one.
By precinct, candidates after the second alignment received votes as follows: Jefferson 1 – Biden 10, Buttigieg 21, Klobuchar 12, Sanders 12; Jefferson 2 – Buttigieg 17, Klobuchar 12, Sanders 18; Jefferson 3 – Biden 14, Buttigieg 31, Klobuchar 20, Sanders 18; Central – Biden 9, Buttigieg 10, Klobuchar 11, Sanders 10, Warren 16; West – Buttigieg 6, Klobuchar 10, Sanders 6, Tom Steyer 5; North – Biden 11, Klobuchar 11, Buttigieg 11, Sanders 13; and East – Biden 9, Buttigieg 16, Sanders 17.
Delegates to the county convention will be committed as follows: Buttigieg 17, Sanders 15, Klobuchar 10, Biden six, and Warren one.
Greene County central committee chair Chris Henning said the caucuses went well and that she was particularly pleased to see Millennials and even younger voters participate.
She added, though, that Greene County was not immune to technology challenges faced across the state. An app the Iowa Democratic Party had developed for reporting didn’t work, and without that, it took until after 11 pm to get results for the last Greene County precinct reported to the IDP.
