Buttigieg Leads Sanders in Iowa Delegates, 13-12, With 1 Outstanding

The AP had announced Thursday afternoon that it would not declare a winner in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation contest, but the allocation provides new clarity about the accumulation of delegates that are necessary to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts took eight delegates, former Vice President Joe Biden received six, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has one, according to the AP.

The AP calculated the distribution of 40 of Iowa’s 41 national convention delegates. It was not immediately clear why the 41st delegate was not allocated, but it may have been withheld because the news service did not declare a winner in the race. That leaves open the possibility that Sanders could tie Buttigieg in pledged delegates.

Buttigieg also holds a narrow lead in another measure, state delegate equivalents, which the AP, The New York Times and other news organizations use to declare a winner of the caucuses. With data reported from 99% of precincts, Buttigieg has 564 state delegate equivalents to Sanders’ 562.

The delegates won by Buttigieg and Klobuchar will qualify them for the Democratic National Committee’s Feb. 19 debate in Las Vegas (though it is possible Klobuchar could lose her single delegate if the results are reexamined by the Iowa Democratic Party). Sanders, Warren and Biden have already qualified for that debate through polling. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and businessman Tom Steyer did not receive any national delegates and have not qualified for the Nevada debate.

Under party rules, a Democratic presidential candidate must receive 1,990 national delegates to clinch the nomination. Iowa’s spot at the front of the primary calendar has given it huge influence in the race, but its delegates amount to only a small fraction of the total needed.

Iowa Democrats will choose their delegates to the Democratic National Convention at the party’s state convention in June.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .