Although it has been widely reported that Hillary Clinton has “won” the Iowa caucus, and will receive more national delegates than Bernie Sanders, is this a settled fact?
Iowa caucus rules are complex, but the results are reported in “state delegate equivalents”. The number of state delegates a candidate has at the state convention determines the number of national delegates they receive.
So where do Sanders and Clinton stand in this tally? According to the Des Moines Register Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire stated early Tuesday morning
Hillary Clinton has been awarded 699.57 state delegate equivalents, Bernie Sanders has been awarded 695.49 state delegate equivalents, Martin O’Malley has been awarded 7.68 state delegate equivalents and uncommitted has been awarded .46 state delegate equivalents. We still have outstanding results in one precinct - Des Moines 42 - which is worth 2.28 state delegate equivalents.
Ignoring for the moment the chaos that has prevented precinct 42, where reportedly Sanders won 58.3 percent and Clinton won 41.7 percent of the vote, giving Sanders seven delegates and Clinton five, from being tallied (and the 137 unidentified caucus chairs that are preventing independent verification of the results), let’s examine the math for these reported totals. Clinton has 4.08 “state delegate equivalents” more than Sanders, with 10.42 delegates not committed to either.
Bottom line? The contest is far from decided, although Clinton's Iowa campaign director Matt Paul has unequivocally stated that "Hillary Clinton has won the Iowa Caucus”. In the end, who “won” or “lost” what is essentially a tie in Iowa, and how many national delegates each candidate gets, will be decided by O’Malley’s delegates at the district and/or state conventions.