[beeftime]

The idea that the delay(s) hurt Buttigieg in any way is a profound misreading of the situation. Iowa has a small number of delegates, and it's only important in as much as it creates momentum for the winner going into the next three states.

If they released the vote totals on time and Bernie won, that would have given his campaign momentum, which could have lead (still might) to a NH blowout.

Instead, Pete got to "declare victory" twice -- night-of, and again after the 60% release. Now it really doesn't matter if they release the results and Bernie is shown to have won, because we're already multiple news cycles away from caucus night and most people aren't really paying attention, so it's going to be hard for Sanders to capture any momentum, if it's shown he has won. Pete, on the other hand, got a significant NH bump from the IA results in the latest polls.

I think the only way it's hurt Pete is through IDP incompetence, where to most Americans (who hate a cheater and love a conspiracy theory) it looks, for lack of a better term, extremely shady. It's also fired up Bernie's base of die-hards, who are now on the warpath (or even more so) for the early states