Donald Trump Jr. Says Sanders Won 'Bigger' in Iowa Caucus Than Buttigieg Despite Initial Results

As Americans eagerly awaited the severely delayed full caucus results from Iowa on Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, took to Twitter to express his view that Senator Bernie Sanders won "bigger" in the state than former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The Iowa caucuses ended in a chaotic mess last night. After the event concluded, news emerged that its results had been severely delayed due to technical difficulties related to user-error problems with a new mobile app. Wth still no results to be seen on Tuesday morning, the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) announced that results will be released at 5 p.m. ET. But when that time came, the IDP only released early and incomplete results, which accounted for 62 percent of the state's roughly 1,700 precincts. It showed Buttigieg slightly leading the field with 26.9 percent of delegates, Sanders running on 25 percent and Senator Elizabeth Warren in third with 18 percent.

"Feels like a bigger win for Bernie than the numbers indicate seeing as Pete had the ability to actually campaign for the last few weeks while Bernie was stuck in DC because of Nancy's nonsense. #IowaCaucas," Trump Jr. wrote, alongside a tweet encouraging the media to ignore the "goofy delegate math" and "use the number of actual votes" in determining a Democratic winner from Iowa.

Newsweek reached out to Buttigieg's campaign for comment.

Despite Trump Jr.'s remarks, the race is still too close to call with more than a third of precincts still to be counted. However, Buttigieg and Sanders have both already self-declared themselves victorious based on internal figures. "Tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality," Buttigieg tweeted on Monday night, before official results were released. "One year ago, we began this unlikely journey to win the American presidency."

"We weren't well known, but we had a new idea," Buttigieg added. "We had the belief that in the face of exhaustion, cynicism, and division—in spite of every trampled norm and poisonous tweet, that a rising majority of Americans was hungry for action and ready for new answers."

Sanders issued similar remarks, indicating a potential win for his campaign. "When those results are announced, I have a good feeling we're going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa," the senator said as candidates waited for the delayed results. "The message that Iowa has sent to the nation, the message shared by the American people, is that we want a government that represents all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors and the one percent."

Although official turnout figures are still to be confirmed, the IDP on Monday night said that early data showed that "turnout is on pace for 2016," a year that only saw 172,000 caucusgoers. A low figure compared to the record-high of 240,000 in 2008.