If you turn to the New York Times for an update on the excruciatingly and inexplicably slow counting of the votes from the Iowa caucuses, you find what looks like a bar chart showing that South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg did approximately 50 times better than any of his next closest rivals:
On closer examination, it turns out that that is not a bar chart, but merely the New York Times’ indication that Buttigieg is in the lead, with (at this writing) approximately 75% of the precincts reporting. But leading at what? Not in number of votes received, either in the first or the final round of the caucuses—the candidate leading in both of those categories was Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had a 2.8 and 0.6 percentage point lead, respectively, over Buttigieg. No, the chart says “Total SDEs,” and a footnote helpfully explains that these are “state delegate equivalents, which are derived from caucus vote tallies and determine the number of pledged delegates each candidate receives.”
Times polling maven Nate Cohn has a note nearby that states that SDEs are “the metric we use to call a winner.” But—why? SDEs are a meaningless intermediate step between the number of votes cast and the pledged delegates awarded—the latter being what actually matters in terms of winning the Democratic nomination for president, which is what this is all about. Why not use those as the metric you use to call a winner—the way, you know, the Democratic Party does?
Well, if you look at the pledged delegate count—featured in a box further down the page—you see the problem: As of 5 pm EST on Wednesday, Buttigieg and Sanders are tied with 11 delegates apiece. And declaring that the great centrist hope has won something is something that corporate media are clearly eager to do—even in an exceedingly close race in which, rather famously, not all the votes have been counted yet.
Thus Slate (2/5/20) had the headline: “How Pete Won.” In the article, William Saletan wrote: “Buttigieg, by assembling a broad coalition of progressives, moderates, suburbs and small towns, was winning the ‘delegate equivalent’ count—Iowa’s version of the Electoral College.” That’s wrong, of course; the equivalent of the Electoral College, in the sense of the number that determines the real-world outcome, is the delegate count, which at that point Buttigieg had not won and was not winning. (Note that the link in Saletan’s takes you to the New York Times for its ex cathedra assurance that this mathematical placeholder is actually the measure of victory in the Iowa contest.)
On CNN, correspondent Jim Sciutto (2/5/20) stated that Sanders “did lose to a small-town mayor.” Prodded to defend this claim on Twitter (2/5/20), Sciutto asserted: “Based on results so far, he did lose.” The CNN reporter seems to need a refresher as to what the point of an election is—as well as about what the past tense means.
Thanks for the article. One quick note, is this a typo (‘Howe’ vs ‘How’) in the following text:
Thus Slate (2/5/20) had the headline: “Howe Pete Won.”
Thats very good, or
“how pete one”
BUTTIGEIG IS THE AMERICAN GAUIDO……
Buttigeig (what a weird pliant name name for a weird pliant man)
It’s GUAIDO!
What we count is what we say counts
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReleaseTheResults?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225189173998411778&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwqad.com%2F2020%2F02%2F05%2Fvoters-say-the-iowa-caucus-numbers-dont-add-up-and-people-are-freaking-out%2F
Heres another way they make it look like Wine Cave Pete is winning : By misreporting the votes at the county level, and stuffing “the ballot box” for “Mayor Pete” ..
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReleaseTheResults?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225189173998411778&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwqad.com%2F2020%2F02%2F05%2Fvoters-say-the-iowa-caucus-numbers-dont-add-up-and-people-are-freaking-out%2F
wine cave pete knows this is happening and derclared “victory” – twice – anyway
The DNC and the Iowa democratic party are stealing the caucus …thats how mayor pete “won” .
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReleaseTheResults?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225189173998411778&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwqad.com%2F2020%2F02%2F05%2Fvoters-say-the-iowa-caucus-numbers-dont-add-up-and-people-are-freaking-out%2F
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReleaseTheResults?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225189173998411778&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwqad.com%2F2020%2F02%2F05%2Fvoters-say-the-iowa-caucus-numbers-dont-add-up-and-people-are-freaking-out%2F
the dnc is stealing the caucus..thats how they make it look likewine cavern petey is “winning”
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReleaseTheResults?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225189173998411778&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwqad.com%2F2020%2F02%2F05%2Fvoters-say-the-iowa-caucus-numbers-dont-add-up-and-people-are-freaking-out%2F
Pete is a warmonging, cheat, …. Bernie is blackmailing us into giving him the ticket or he will tear apart the Democratic party, which he is just using for personal gain.
Yes – isnt it awful that Bernie is suggesting that we should have some bizarre election approach like one person one vote – and that corporations and billionaires shouldn’t get additional voting privileges.
FYI as of 96% of Iowa counted – votes for candidates (with less than 15% of the total, i.e. excluding Pete, Bernie and Liz) added up to 61,113 votes. Of those, 47,385 voters decided to stick with their excluded candidate.
In plain English – 77.5% of NON Pete, Bernie Liz voters refused to “Vote Blue No Matter Who” – I hope that you remember that if / when we dont have your preferred nominee – who loses to Trump.
Bernie bots are not only bullies but sore losers.
No… we just want a fair election… sorry that upsets your narrative…
Are you saying this as an unsore loser, or do you have something productive to share with the class?
Sanders won the poular vote in Iowa..so i guess Petey Bourgeois who said “i beleive the person who gets the most votes is the winner” has changed his tune ? no surprises there and and the first time…and not the last! we may be sure. see you in New Hampshire petey
Except, Sanders did not lose by any meaningful measure. Maybe you meant to say “sore winners”? At worst, Sanders tied Buttigieg- 11 delegates to 11 delegates. But he won several thousand more votes. So, at worst a tie, at best a win.
Helpful! Should be shared widely.
In 2016 Democrats used the PSV (Pant Suit Vote) metric. This was found to be unreliable as apparently it wasnt related to any prediction of any outcome.
After years of debate, they have hit upon the “other” metric (somewhat akin to Doug and DInsdale Piranha’s “other” operation). If, as is entirely predicted, the SDE is proven to be so confusing and unrelated to what people (aka “voters”) said, and what the result (aka “winner”) is, it is entirely possible that they will hit upon the “other other” election metric – of actual votes.
It is predicted that by around 2028 they will find the “other other vote” metric operation so successful they will try to sell this idea around the world – probably calling it “Democracy” (subject to an expensive team of marketing and PR consultants) – although one doubts that it will catch on.
Nate Cohn, in trying to explain away the exit polls of 16 states’ 2016 Democratic primaries being “reworked” to have Hillary win, when Sanders was the winner of 12 of the 16, and the margins for Hillary’s wins in the other 4 weren’t nearly as large as official results record, had to invent the bogus excuse that exit polling is reported piece meal throughout the day and that’s why the exit polls gave Sanders the overall primary win in 2016.
This piece meal claim is a flagrant lie.
Cohn then disappeared that lie from his late spring 2016 “analysis” of Hillary’s “win”.
No, I can’t prove this, because I didn’t keep a copy of the Cohn piece that originally included the lie that exit polling is based on partial results. It’s not, it’s collected in the morning and mid-afternoon, then analyzed. At 5PM the results are released to the likes of the NYT, CNN, and the AP, but the polling continues into the early evening.
Those 5PM results can’t have all been off always in Sanders’ favor. Nor of course did Hillary voters only vote after 5PM.
So Nate Cohn is a liar, not a surprise that he’s still employed by the NY Times, even after his “Hillary 84% likely to win” prediction of Nov. 7th 2016.
Thanks for this article Jim.
Sanders won by thousands of voters in an 8 way race with only 180 thousand voters. That’s a big win. And only because the delegate system is unfair and screwed up do they have the same number of delegates despite his win. Pete the Cheat has every rich scumbag backing him and still lost. But that isn’t stopping the lie factory from oppressing the truth and us.
Upon reading this article, the first thing I did was to double-check its source.
The source itself mismatches what Mr Naureckas reported that it said.
To be fair, perhaps Mr Naureckas was unaware that a link from the word “update” was likely to be updated, and neglected to mention the time he accessed the link.
As of now (Feb.7 at 17:50 PST), the NYTimes article says this:
———>
Iowa Caucus Results 2020
The Associated Press said it was ^unable to declare a winner^. Read about ^the errors evident^ in the results. Feb. 6, 2020, 8:55 PM ET
_________________________________
Candidate …… Total S.D.E.s* … Pct. …. Pledged delegates
—————————————
Pete Buttigieg ……….. 564 ……. 26.2% … 13
Bernie Sanders …….. 562 …….. 26.1% … 12
Elizabeth Warren ….. 387 …….. 18.0% ….. 8
Joseph R. Biden Jr. … 341 …….. 15.8% ….. 6
Amy Klobuchar …….. 264 …….. 12.3% ….. 1
Andrew Yang ………….. 22 ………. 1.0% …. 0
Tom Steyer ………………. 7 ……….. 0.3% …. 0
Others ……………………… 0 ……….. 0.0% …. 0
(footnote from “Total S.D.E.s*”):
* Candidate totals are state delegate equivalents, which are derived from caucus vote tallies and determine the number of pledged delegates each candidate receives.
_________________________________
Buttigieg now leads in 58 counties, while Sanders leads in 20 counties. We’re still waiting on precincts in one county. Feb. 6, 2020, 8:55 PM ET
<———
The outpouring of vitriol against Mr Buttigieg is something I'd expect from a Russian bot farm. I prefer reporters to report the reportable and to put it in context (which in this case includes the uncertainty and the methods used to calculate the various metrics). Is that too much to expect?
Would someone please explain exactly what is a State Delegate Equivalent and what exactly is it’s function in the election process? Is it counting state delegates to the state convention or state delegates to the national Democrat Convention?
Please define this term. Thank you.
Do we have any leverage at all to hold the media accountable? Can we take them to task for this, or is it already in the bag? Buttigieg’s track record with the complex issues at hand in America today is mediocre at best, and sometimes atrocious. I do not think he’ll be able to capture a demographic outside of moderate white voters.
While the USA uses the “democracy” concept as its national banner, it is obvious by its current application in the DNC electoral caucases, it is a FARCE. The Killary Clinton’s dirt-state hidden forces are determined to impose anyone-else-but-Bernie to be the next candidate. IT IS HYPOCRITICALLY FALSE all the childish theatre the filthy DNC oligarchy is performing to force their agenda. The damage to democracy in USA is immense. The Democratic Party has become a Corrupt Horror.
As a registered Democrats I am biased in their favor. I watched and taped the caucus reportage for hours and I am pretty good at math and I saw the hosts of MSNBC struggling to make sense of the Iowa caucus votes live as the numbers added up and they were in the same boat as I. I kept thinking what’s wrong. And this might lead to suspicion on viewers part. Peter Butigieg is a very compelling figure partly and for my taste extremely intelligent. Amy K.s numbers in New Hampshire were a bit of a surprise not being so close to E Warren’s home and Bernie’s in Vermont.