Why AP called Iowa's Democratic contest for Biden: Race call explained

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press was able to declare President Joe Biden the winner of Iowa’s first vote-by-mail Democratic presidential preference contest based on near-complete vote results released Tuesday by the Iowa Democratic Party that showed him receiving nine out of every 10 votes.

It was the first race called on Super Tuesday, when voters decide primaries and caucuses in 16 states and American Samoa. More than 70% of the delegates needed to mathematically clinch either the Democratic or Republican presidential nominations will be decided based on Tuesday’s contests.

In the Iowa results released Tuesday, Biden received about 91% of the vote, with “uncommitted" in a very distant second place with 4% and U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williams each with less than 3% of the total vote.

In addition to the commanding lead, the results showed Biden winning with similar margins in every geographic region of the state. He won with more than 90% of the vote among Democratic voters who live in both heavily Democratic areas and heavily Republican areas, as well as the more moderate areas in between.

Voting took place between Jan. 12 through Super Tuesday among registered Iowa Democrats who requested a mail ballot. Ballots postmarked by Tuesday will be accepted up until the party certifies the vote on March 16.

Biden has won every contest so far of the 2024 primary by wide margins. His closest race was in New Hampshire, where he skipped the primary but still won by more than 40 percentage points when supporters mounted a write-in effort on his behalf. In Michigan, where a protest vote resulted in “uncommitted” winning two delegates, Biden still received more than 81% of the statewide vote.

The earliest Biden could win enough delegates to clinch the nomination is March 19. He would need to win about 77% of the delegates at stake on Super Tuesday through March 19 to wrap up the nomination by that date.

The next polls to close on Super Tuesday are in Vermont and Virginia, where polls close at 7 p.m. EST. In North Carolina, polls close at 7:30 p.m. EST. At 8 p.m. EST, polls close in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee and most of Texas.

Iowa historically has kicked off the race for the White House for both parties, starting in 1972 for Democrats and 1976 for Republicans. But after their disastrous 2020 caucuses were plagued with technical and logistical problems and failed to produce a clear, undisputed winner, Iowa Democrats were ousted from their prime first-in-the-nation perch in favor of South Carolina, which held the party's first authorized presidential nominating contest of the year on Feb. 3.

The state party did still hold caucuses on Jan. 15, the same date as the Republican caucuses that Trump won by a 30-point margin. But to comply with the national party’s primary calendar rules, the only voting for presidential candidates that took place was in the mail-in primary that concluded on Tuesday.