Briefing | Iowa overShadowed

The shambolic Iowa caucuses did little to unite the Democrats

They were good for Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, bad for Joe Biden

|CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, INDEPENDENCE, IOWA, AND WASHINGTON DC

IN THE SMALL hours of February 4th a straggling squadron of private jets left Des Moines International Airport and headed east through a clear, cold sky, its clouds and the snowy land beneath them silvered by the light of a setting half moon. Conditions in the state the planes left behind them were far less perspicuous. A malfunctioning app made by a firm called Shadow Inc. meant that the results of the Iowa caucuses which are normally announced not much past nine o’clock in the evening, remained shrouded in mystery.

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Iowa and after”

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