How Bernie Sanders Stood Up to Hillary Clinton in Iowa

By the end of a long night of caucusing and vote counting, it seemed like the Democratic race in Iowa was a coin toss—literally. With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders still locked in a dead heat, reports began circulating around 11 PM here that at least six tied precincts had picked a winner based on the flip of coin. Bizarrely, Clinton had won all six.

As it turns out, the coin flips probably didn't have any affect on the final vote tallies. But it was nevertheless a sign of just how close the Democratic race had become in Iowa. On Tuesday morning, the Associated Press officially declared Clinton the winner, barely edging out Sanders by just less than four state delegate equivalents, according to the state party, in what amounts to the closest result in Iowa Democratic caucus history. (If this result holds, Clinton will have earned 23 of Iowa's delegates to the Democratic National Convention; Sanders will wind up with 21.)

Sanders has indicated he won't contest the results, but suggested Tuesday that his campaign might ask the Iowa Democratic Party to release the raw vote totals, something the state party has never done. (Ostensibly to show that Sanders could have won the popular vote, even if he's behind in delegates.) The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, claimed victory early Tuesday morning, arguing in a statement that "statistically, there is no outstanding information that could change the results and no way that Senator Sanders can overcome Secretary Clinton's advantage."

Still, it's hard to see Monday's results as anything other than a victory for Sanders, one that was pretty unimaginable when the self-described Democratic socialist announced his campaign in a Washington press conference last spring. As recently as December, Sanders was trailing Clinton by double digits in most Iowa polls. Even as his numbers rose in the weeks leading up to the caucus, conventional wisdom held that any enthusiasm his campaign was generating among the young and liberal wouldn't be enough to beat Clinton's superior field organization.

Sanders has made a habit of defying conventional wisdom, and reveling in it. In front of a crowd of delirious supporters Monday night, he seemed determined not to let his opponent, or the media, spin away his campaign's accomplishment. "Nine months ago, we came to this beautiful state. We had no political organization; we had no money; no name recognition. And we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America," Sanders began, barking over the noise of the ballroom at the airport Holiday Inn. "And tonight while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie." The crowd erupted, and kept going for almost a full minute before Sanders had to wave the group down.

The room was feverish, pulsating with the Bern. More than an hour before Sanders took the stage, the party was already packed, the risers bouncing in unison to a Motown medley. Dudes with man-buns clustered in groups of twos and threes near the stage, hopping around invisible hackey-sacks and spontaneously breaking into high fives. A troupe of what I assume were children—or potentially very tiny adults—in matching fluorescent orange fleeces milled around in a pack, occasionally jumping up and down together at random intervals.

"He's fighting—fighting for us," said Mark Harrick, a 23-year-old volunteer who'd flown in from Panama to campaign for Sanders. Joining hands with another volunteer to dance around me in a ring as I asked questions, Harrick explained: "We're a big arrow. Bernie is just the point of the arrow. A huge fat arrow."

Just outside, volunteers milled around, drinking beers and discussing where the revolution would go from here. "I've been talking about Bernie since June, when no one knew who he was," said Nathan Emerson, a 29-year-old volunteer from Des Moines, told me. "'We were going into basements, meeting with two or three people, trying to get them to support an independent running on the Democratic ticket." Now, he added, sipping from a bottle of rum, "the media is finally going to be forced to pay attention."

Across town, at her own caucus night party, Clinton was, somewhat mystifyingly, upbeat about her campaign's performance. Saying that she was "breathing a big sigh of relief," at the results, Clinton added that she looked forward to having a "real contest of ideas" with Sanders.

The Clinton camp enthusiastically echoed these ideas throughout the night, claiming that the campaign had always assumed the Iowa caucus would be a close race, and suggesting that perhaps Democrats were playing into the GOP's strategy by supporting Sanders, a candidate who, unlike Clinton, has never been seriously attacked or vetted by the opposition.

"The polls right now are based on the GOP fully attacking Hillary non-stop for years, and they haven't attacked Bernie at all—they've spent zero dollars attacking him. They don't mention him on Fox, they don't mention him in the debates, they don't mention him in any of the conservative news media," said Wesley Earley, a Los Angeles real estate agent and Clinton supporter."That's the scare with the DNC."

"Unfortunately," he added, "you can't tell any of that to a Bernie supporter."

The broader tendency among Clinton supporters, though, was simply to dismiss Sanders's success, chalking his Iowa numbers up to youthful exuberance that they assume will fade as Democrats start looking for a serious presidential contender.

"Bill Bradley had this [enthusiasm]," said Minnesota Democratic Party leader Corey Day, who attended Clinton's Monday night party as a special guest. "Ralph Nader had it. Howard Dean had it. Do you know what they all had in common? None of them won the nomination. So I'm not losing sleep over it per se—we've seen this before. The reality is that Hillary is the best candidate for the job. She's the most qualified candidate for the job, and she's shown it time and time again."

This is the argument Clinton supporters have been making ever since she entered the race: The former first lady, New York senator, and secretary of state has the strongest résumé in the Democratic field, and a history of shrugging off attacks made by the right-wing media. But even after she put enormous resources into Iowa, she couldn't manage a convincing win over Sanders, who represents the kind of grassroots progressivism that she herself has never been inclined, or able, to inspire.

In that sense, Monday's vote was a referendum on the way that politics is conducted in this country, by Clinton and other politicians like her.

"I have a lot of respect for Hillary, but for me, Bernie Sanders is walking the walk," said Erika McCroskey, a 37-year-old Sanders supporter who attended Monday night's victory party. "Clinton takes it everywhere she can get it, between Super PACs and speaking fees."

"For me, Bernie represents democracy, how it's supposed to be," she added. "I believe him."

Grace Wyler is on Twitter. Photographer Ryan Donnell is on Twitter, too, and also on Instagram.