The Note: Buttigieg rises at Biden’s expense in messy wake of Iowa

The TAKE with Rick Klein

Where does Pete Buttigieg go to get the momentum he earned?

Where he is now is New Hampshire, along with the other campaigning Democrats, in a tight run-up to next Tuesday’s primary -- made tighter by the disastrous technical issues that delayed the vote count from the Iowa caucuses and Wednesday afternoon's final Senate vote on impeachment.

Where he’s gone is after a segment of the race that former Vice President Joe Biden has sought to occupy.

Caucus entrance polls from Iowa showed voters who favor electability splitting roughly evenly between Buttigieg and Biden, and Buttigieg showing strength on issues favored by both self-described liberals and moderates. His campaign claims he will prove to have been viable in more precincts than any other candidate in the race.

"Better late than never," Buttigieg said Tuesday night, delivering New Hampshire supporters news of the first big chunk of votes in Iowa, which showed him leading the caucus tally.

Sen. Bernie Sanders remains strong going into home-turf voting, and the messy Iowa finish could keep all the major candidates in the race. Sanders could still claim to have had more people show up for him Monday night, even if he doesn’t walk away with the most delegates.

What Iowa delivered, at least with incomplete vote totals -- though those totals track with what major campaigns and independent analysts saw in the data -- is a judgment that Buttigieg’s message worked.

His buzzy breakthrough moment was delayed, though it might not be denied. It will fall to others -- Biden and Sanders, perhaps included -- to try to make that moment a short one.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

It is hard to know who really won the delegates, messaging or spin game coming out of Iowa, but we know three candidates lost.

Former Vice President Joe Biden might benefit from the fact that the headlines out of Iowa are about the process and not the points on the board. Still, for a candidate who is pitching electability, has universal name recognition and high national polling numbers, his showing in Iowa was arguably dismal and showed serious weaknesses. Let’s remember his team doubled down in the state in the last few months.

Just a few months ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was a top contender in polls here in Iowa, too. When the dust settles she could end up in third place with what looks like a noticeable gap between second and third. The takeaway there is really that a sizable and diverse numbers of voters stuck with Sanders -- or gravitated to former Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- instead of backing her.

The early returns were also not great for Midwestern Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who specifically pitched herself in Iowa as someone who could win this part of the country.

Still, according to early and partial returns, Klobuchar overperformed in the most conservative parts of the state. With 62% of precincts statewide reporting, she is up by nearly 10 points in Sioux County, arguably the reddest part of the state.

It’s hard to imagine those unique numbers will be enough to help her breakthrough at this point, though. Warren and Biden, on the other hand, may be able to spin their way forward, but Iowa was far from a jolt and likely more of a setback for both of them.

The TIP with Briana Stewart

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been jet-setting through battleground states on his private plane, poking fun at the chaotic outcome of the Iowa caucus and seizing the opportunity to elevate his status in the 2020 race.

"While all the other Democratic candidates have flown to New Hampshire now, I‘m here in Michigan because this is a state we absolutely -- look we have to win this state in November if we’re going to beat Donald Trump," Bloomberg told supporters Tuesday at an organizing event in Detroit.

His latest swing comes at the same time he decided to double his already-massive campaign spending in order to hit new markets in crucial primary states. The Bloomberg campaign is also aggressively beefing up its staff with plans to hire more than 2,000 staffers in the near future. Currently, the campaign has 2,100 staffers employed in 40 states and U.S. territories.

"We are going in the right direction, I think. And more than any other candidate, we have the momentum going with us. And our campaign is only barely two months old. I've been campaigning all over the country and we are building more support by the day," Bloomberg said.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" Podcast.Wednesday morning’s episode features ABC News Deputy Political Director MaryAlice Parks who talks about the Iowa caucus results and how the reporting breakdown occurred. Then, we recap President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night with ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. In this late-night installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses why the results of the Democratic Iowa caucuses had still not been reported by early Tuesday morning. They also debate what the repercussions could be for Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status and the Democratic primary overall. After we recorded the podcast, the Iowa Democratic Party released further details about what went wrong in reporting the results of the caucuses. https://apple.co/23r5y7w

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