Troy Price, the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, resigned on February 12 after a week of angry Iowa voters calling for him to step down. They’ve been seeking his resignation ever since the Iowa Caucus experienced numerous inconsistencies that are still plaguing the party results, resulting in Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns both calling for partial recounts.
State Representative Mark Smith will be the interim chair, Bloomberg reported.
Voters began calling for Price to resign after he held a press conference on February 4, revealing that the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) had only released 62 percent of the votes after reporters had been waiting all night for results. During the press conference, some reporters shouted at Troy Price. The press conference ended with people taking to Twitter and calling for Price to resign or step down.
Nearly a week later, the results were still confusing. The IDP had released its national delegate count, but Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg ended up requesting a recount of some precincts. Many precinct counts were still being disputed, despite IDP saying 100 percent of results had been counted. Decision Desk, for example, wasn’t comfortable declaring a winner based on the IDP’s released results.
You can watch the press conference from February 4 below.
At one point during the conference on February 4, one reporter asked: “How can we trust you?” Another asked if he might step down. At the time, Price said no, he had a commitment to see the Iowa caucus through.
As the Q&A opens someone in the crowd yells “how can anyone trust you now?”
Troy Price is the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. He was executive director of One Iowa when he stepped down to help with Barack Obama’s campaign for 2012. At the time he wrote, “I am writing to you today with mixed emotions to announce my departure from One Iowa. I have been offered and accepted a position as Political Director with the Obama for America campaign. This was not an easy decision, or one that I made lightly, but I could not turn down the opportunity to help re-elect the President and move our country forward.” He was re-elected to chair of the IDP in 2018.
The Iowa Democratic Party said that the results of the caucus were slowed down due in part to coding errors in the Shadow App that weren’t discovered until during the caucus itself.
The IDP released 62 percent of the precincts’ results here on February 4. But many people didn’t trust the results then and were wondering what the coding error was. Questions still remain about Shadow Inc. and its role, and the results were still being questioned on February 10.
As a result, many voters have been expressing their anger on Twitter and Facebook and called for Price to resign or step down. He ultimately did.
Daniel Clark, a precinct captain for Sanders in Iowa who is also now a county delegate for Iowa, wrote the following on Twitter to Price on February 4. Clark wrote: “@troymprice as an Iowan, as a Democrat, and as a gay man… I request that you step down from head chair of the Iowa Dems. You are unfit to lead. This is the worst caucus in I have ever participated in and I was there in 2016 for Hillary Vs Bernie.”
@troymprice as an Iowan, as a Democrat, and as a gay man… I request that you step down from head chair of the Iowa Dems. You are unfit to lead. This is the worst caucus in I have ever participated in and I was there in 2016 for Hillary Vs Bernie.
Here are more angry tweets calling for him to step down.
Troy Price and Tom Perez should be fired immediately; they may just have caused us to lose 2020.
Another person wrote: “Troy Price should resign his position in shame. This is unacceptable! How could he have f***ed this up do badly during the most important election in our country’s history?”
@AdamParkhomenko @HoodlumRIP Troy Price should resign his position in shame. This is unacceptable! How could he have fucked this up do badly during the most important election in our country’s history?
Another person wrote: “Whatever app that the #Iowa Democratic Party used to record results of the #IowaCaucases needs to be banned, and #TroyPrice needs to go.#IowaCaucusDisaster”
Others are tweeting #RIPIowaCaucuses.
BREAKING: Troy Price releases 62% of the #IowaCaucuses results from last night.
Still others believe this is the end of the Iowa caucus and Iowa being first in the Democratic primaries.
Sorry #troyprice but the #IowaCaucuses of yesteryear is over.
You will never be first ever again.
#Illinoisfirst #IowaCaucuses
#bernie #westillloveyouiowa #neveragain
Another person wrote: “#TroyPrice – definitely not a project manager. Coding errors persisted because your team didn’t stress-test the code! You’re fired.”
#TroyPrice – definitely not a project manager. Coding errors persisted because your team didn’t stress-test the code! You’re fired.
And of course, the memes are taking hold now too.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price on caucus result delay:
“The bottom line is that we hit a stumbling block on the back end of the reporting…” – Troy Price, Iowa Democratic Party Chair
#IowaCaucusDisaster #IowaCaucuses #IowaCaucusDebacle #IowaCaucusResults #TroyPrice
@troymprice Resign.
The most prepared you’ve ever been huh @troymprice? Thanks for making the Democratic Party look incompetent right after saying the day before that everything would be awesome. Thanks for that bud.
CBS noted earlier that Price had turned down an opportunity to talk on camera about the results.
.@iowademocrats chair @troymprice declined our invitation to talk on camera about the lack of caucus results this morning. He held a press call with reporters. You can see him walking across the balcony (upper left). cc @MajorCBS
And one person noted that during the press conference, when asked when all the results would be released, Price did not have an answer.
Important to remember – Iowa Party Chair Troy Price did not say when the state would be able to report 100% of precincts and results
Even with Price’s resignation, voters are still waiting and wondering what the results of the recanvass requests will be and when IDP will look into some of the precinct inconsistencies that are still outstanding.
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