Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is declaring victory in the Iowa caucuses, three days after that contest concluded.
Sanders pointed to numbers from the first alignment of the caucus, which showed him just under 6,000 votes ahead of former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg also declared victory, on Monday night.
Sanders was asked by a reporter why voters should believe his victory speech over Buttigieg's.
"Because I got 6,000 more votes," he responded. "And from where I come, when you get 6,000 more votes, that's generally regarded to be the winner."
See NPR's coverage of the Iowa Caucus results here.
However, Sanders is trailing Buttiegieg slightly in state delegate equivalents, the measure used by many media outlets to determine the winner of the Iowa cuacus. Sanders dismissed that, saying he believes he and Buttigieg will ultimately come out with the same number of delegates going to the national convention from Iowa.
Sanders' remarks came just minutes after Tom Perez, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, called on the Iowa Democratic Party to recount the results, after reports of inconsistencies.
A recanvass is a review of the worksheets from each caucus site to ensure accuracy.
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 6, 2020
The IDP will continue to report results.
Perez later walked back that statement, saying only precincts where problems were reported needed to be recanvassed.
Sanders also told reporters it was an "outrage" that the Iowa Democratic Party was unprepared for a complicated caucus process.
"I think there is very little doubt that what happened on Monday night, that type of process, that complicated process, that is never, ever, I don't think, going to happen again," Sanders said.
Sanders also called the Iowa caucus process "much, much too complicated," but did not directly answer a reporter's question asking whether the caucus system should continue.
Update 7:05 a.m. 2/7/2020 This story has been updated after DNC Chair Tom Perez clarified his position on recanvassing.
