Pete Buttigieg narrowly won Iowa's Democratic presidential caucuses, the state party said on Thursday, after a long delay in releasing the results of the first contest in the race to pick a challenger to Republican President Donald Trump.
Buttigieg, the moderate 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, edged out progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders by 26.2% to 26.1% of state-delegate equivalents - the data traditionally used to determine the winner - with 100% of precincts counted, the Iowa Democratic Party said.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren finished third with 18%, while former Vice President Joe Biden limped to a disappointing fourth with 15.8%. US Senator Amy Klobuchar finished fifth with 12.3%.
The results, which have been marred by technical and organizational errors, could reshape the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination for November's election and raise doubts about the future of Biden, the one-time front-runner.
Iowa Democrats had poured into 1,600 schools, community centers and other public locations on Monday night to make their choices among the 11 candidates in the Democratic race.
But the Democratic candidates had already departed Iowa and turned their attention to the next nominating contest in New Hampshire on February 11 before the first results were even released in two batches on Tuesday.
Officials blamed inconsistencies related to a new mobile app used for vote counting for the unusual delay in Iowa, the state that traditionally kicks off a US presidential election campaign that culminates this year on November 3.
