They are so close in State delegate Equialents (550 vs. 547 currently), that they both probably end up with the same delegate haul.

Uhoh, this is too juicy not to share: 538 next calculation of the primary forecast put Sanders chances of winning the majority of pledged delegates nearly at 50%. Biden never got this high in the forecast.

And I want to add, for a year now we see Biden as the frontrunner and most likely nominee. Everything - debates, gaffes, negative media coverage - was seemingly not influencing him in the least. But all it needed was one night of contact with actual voters and his status is shattered.

We now (finally) have 97% of the results in and it is now clear that Bernie Sanders has won the popular vote. As of this count, he is leading in the popular vote by a percentage point and a half, with 26.5% of the vote, compared to an even 25% for his nearest rival, Pete Buttigieg, even after voters had the opportunity to go with their second-choice preferences. (His lead before that realignment was larger.) If current trends continue, Sanders will also likely get the most delegates out of Iowa. (The Wikipedia page lays this stuff out the most clearly, I think, and is regularly updated.) These results, together with the sheer margin of Joe Biden's defeat (fourth place in both the actual vote and delegate count) indicate that Bernie Sanders has a strong chance of becoming the nominee! That's because the neoliberals seem to be more divided in their preferences, splitting their votes three ways in this contest, and four ways in the national polling, compared with a two-way split in the progressive camp. That comparative division has just landed Sanders a win he didn't have in 2016, at least by the most basic metric anyway.

Also, @tsogud endeavored to doubt me on the approximate turnout numbers earlier, questioning what my sources could possibly be. My source was the Iowa State Democratic Party itself, which projected total turnout based on 25% of the voting locations reporting, and with 97% of the results in now, we can indeed see that the total turnout will, in fact, prove to be almost identical to that of 2016. With 97% of the results in, 168,685 votes are accounted for, compared to 171,517 who voted in the Iowa Democratic Caucus in 2016. As much is not an auspicious sign of where the presidential election might go regardless of who the Democratic nominee winds up being.

Anyway, I'd like to momentarily point out an interesting "coincidence" that I have observed in the delegate allocations so far, based, again, on 97% of the results being in:

Candidates with larger delegate share than vote share:

Buttigieg: 25% of votes, 26.2% of delegates
Biden: 13.7% of votes, 15.8% of delegates

Candidates with same delegate share as vote share:

Klobuchar: 12.2% of votes, 12.2% of delegates
Yang: 1% of votes, 1% of delegates

Candidates with smaller delegate share than vote share:

Sanders: 26.5% of votes, 26.1% of delegates
Warren: 20.3% of votes, 18.5% of delegates

Isn't it an interesting coincidence that the discrepancies just happen to align with ideologies?

Thanks for clearing it up Jaicee. I think Bernies chances, aside from doom and gloom, are much better than we first thought. I reckon Petes chances won't be as good in NH as they were in Iowa, Bernie is from a close neighbour state after all. But it does ask the question: How much of Bidens collapse will benefit Pete. How much of Warrens position will benefit Bernie? I think now is the time to look at what bottom candidates support will go to the apparent winners. 

It is pretty usual that people in rural areas  tend to have different ideologies than people in urban areas. Urban areas have usually precincts wit more voters and easy higher turnout (as it is usually easier to reach the polling station). Therefore it was already predicted, that this may benefit the more conservative candidates.

Well first of all, Biden hasn't collapsed unless he loses in South Carolina because he's relying very disproportionately on black voters and states like Iowa and New Hampshire, unlike South Carolina, have virtually none of those. A defeat for Biden is South Carolina would be an actual collapse. Short of that, he'll still probably carry the U.S. South along with his home state of Delaware and the immediately surrounding states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia at minimum, i.e. will remain a relevant factor in this race with a real chance to win. The real question is whether he can carry several other states that Hillary Clinton won, like Nevada, California, New York, and New Jersey. Mike Bloomberg is currently polling in double-digits nationwide, and particularly well in his native New York and neighboring New Jersey. He really could carry states like those. Meanwhile, Sanders is doing well among Latino voters and could resultantly win the Nevada Caucus this time around.

Its depressing the vote tsogud. I've seen multiple accounts of independents who were excited to vote for the outsider candidates go they may not vote at all. This incident is going to hurt voter turn out because why would you come out in a system where you're not even sure your vote matters? Where they can "change" the results. No one has faith in the party's primary right now. Trump is going to get an impeachment boost to make matters even worse. We knew they would cheat, but we didn't expect them to be so brazen about it. I know Bernie will get the most delegates, but will he be the nominee? I don't know. But if it comes down to cheating Bernie like this the entire time, he'll get the most delegates and they'll rob him at the convention. They'll automatically lose in november if they do this, but not choosing bernie is an auto loss and they've just gone ahead and reinforced the independents who don't believe in the system, to not even give it a try.

This has done significant damage, very significant damage. I'm no longer confident that if Bernie is the nominee that he'll be able to win after all this going down. In other words, I'm pretty sure we're fully on the Trump winning in 2020 path. We were right there at the border of maybe, maybe not. But I definitely think we've made that Trump turn and its because the dems rather lose to trump than win with Bernie. Its so tiring at this point. I'll still do what I have to do but at the same time, this BS is too much.

Well, I don't think so. Bidens problem is twofold:

1. He relies mostly on three groups of people: older people, conservatives and black voters. For all three groups are other still viable candidates attracting these. Michael Bloomberg can claim older voters. Bloomberg and Buttigieg both can get the support of conservatives. And Steyer and Sanders have appeal to black voters. These candidates can siphpon off the support of Biden. That wouldn't be that bad, if Biden had a majority of support. But in reality his national polls always bounced between 25% and 30%. So he relied on other candidates dropping out and he getting their support to begin with. His campaign can't really take the other way round: other candidates nibble away his support.

2. His main argument for him was electability: he can beat Trump. But losing actual elections isn't helping this argument. In the light of this his supporters might look for alternatives, and as said before, these candidates exist.

How the new satellite caucus sites play into the results and do help Bernie: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/satellite-caucuses-give-a-surprise-boost-to-sanders-in-iowa/

Also look at:

gathering the threads: WHERE'RE WE'RE AT

1-Sanders caught up thanks to satellite organizing https://t.co/pjsWbixZhB

2-Now SDE count hinges on IA1 satellites https://t.co/COON3rI6f7

3-(But caution) https://t.co/xTcb4WQJKd.

4-Also on series of errors https://t.co/COi2RHeJ9X.

— Taniel (@Taniel) February 6, 2020

the Dem Party has still not corrected this error. it should add 0.2798 to Sanders's SDE total once it's corrected.

(might seem small, but that's 8% of Buttigieg's current SDE lead) https://t.co/nXTEGywpYE

— Taniel (@Taniel) February 6, 2020

Back after a quick nap. Great info here — looks like turnout in the IA-1 satellite is on pace to be right around 600. If it goes over 600, then it’s worth 11.2 SDE and Sanders can absolutely take the statewide lead. If it’s 600 or less, 5.6 SDE are at stake and it’s *much* dicier https://t.co/eIY3mCVVHB

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) February 6, 2020

I think Sanders has this primary in the bag. NH is his, and the non-Sanders candidates have Steyer to deal with later, and Bloomberg after that.

I believe the majority of Democrats and Americans prefer a non-populist, center-left approach, but that faction of the party is irreparably split.

What's been most frustrating is Pete. He will never be president. Not now, not later, not ever. He'd likely lose the African American vote to Steve King.
And despite this, despite the lack of qualifications, despite his abysmal connection to minority voters - his ego, sense of entitlement and vanity are more important than his values and his principles. I've never had a "I deserve to be president" vibe coming off as strongly as his. And he won't care once the primary is over.

I had predicted Amy would drop out the day after Iowa, but I guess she's going at it for a while too. I admire her determination, but she's just acting as a spoiler by this point. The "Klobuchar surge" was real, just not in the way anyone expected.

I think enough has been said about Bloomberg. I just hope they annihilate him in the next debate if he decides to go, or empty chair him if he doesn't.