Buttigieg, Sanders Lead in Iowa Caucus, Biden Admits Loss: 'We Took a Gut Punch'

Democrat caucus results are still coming out of Iowa after this week's stunning technological debacle with the vote count.

With the final numbers now almost completely tallied from Monday's caucuses, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are in a virtual dead heat.

With 97 percent of the vote counted, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Buttigieg has 26.2 percent and self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Sanders has 26.1 percent.
 
Both are far ahead of Sen. Elizabeth Warren who finished third with 18 percent.

And former Vice President Joe Biden was fourth with just under 16 percent. On the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Biden acknowledged he did not do well.

"I am not going to sugarcoat it - we took a gut punch in Iowa," Biden admitted.

And he may be in trouble in New Hampshire too, with polls showing Sanders and Buttigieg in the lead there.    

Technical problems hae marred the complicated process in Iowa, forcing state officials to apologize and raising questions about Iowa's traditional place atop the presidential primary calendar.

Democrat Party officials have been confirming the votes by hand count after a reporting app failed due to a coding error.

During a private conference call with campaigns this week, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, Troy Price, declined to answer questions about the timeline. "We have been working day and night to make sure these results are accurate," Price said at a subsequent news conference.

The leading candidates have been pressing on in New Hampshire, which votes this coming Tuesday.

After New Hampshire, the candidates head on to Nevada on Saturday the 22nd for that state's caucus and then to South Carolina at the end of the month for its primary before Super Tuesday on March 3rd.