Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned from his position Wednesday in the aftermath of the catastrophic Iowa caucuses.
In a written statement to members of Iowa’s State Central Committee, Price said Democrats deserved better.
“I am deeply sorry for what happened and bear the responsibility for any failures on behalf of the Iowa Democratic Party,” he said. “While it is my desire to stay in this role and see this process through to completion, I do believe it is time for the Iowa Democratic Party to begin looking forward, and my presence in my current role makes that more difficult.”
The Iowa Democratic Party attempted to use a new app to administer election results, but the app crashed during election night leaving 1,700 precincts with no clear way of reporting their results. The Iowa Democratic Party slowly released results over the course of three days after hand-counting and verifying each precinct’s tally form.
Price issued a personal statement in his resignation as well.
To all the Iowa Democrats out there – I want you to know that serving as chair of this party has been the greatest honor of my life. I have traveled more than 100k miles across the state over the last two years, and everywhere I went I saw the amazing spirit of our party.
To all the @iowademocrats out there – I want you to know that serving as chair of this party has been the greatest honor of my life. I have traveled more than 100k miles across this state over the last two years, and everywhere I went I saw the amazing spirit of our party.
— Troy Price (@troymprice) February 13, 2020
In the aftermath of the caucus debacle, the campaigns for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Pete Buttigieg requested a partial recanvassing of the Iowa caucuses.
According to Tristan Justice of The Federalist, “the latest results released by the Iowa Democratic Party on Sunday night show Buttigieg maintaining a razor-thin lead over Sanders, leading the Vermont senator by two state delegate equivalents out of 2,152 counted with all precincts reporting.”
According to CNN, Price did not want to leave his position as Iowa Democratic Chairman until the recanvass was completed. However, given the process taking longer than expected, friends urged him to step aside to restore whatever credibility is left within the Democratic party.
“There was no way [Price] could remain the face of the party. New leadership is the only way to try and move beyond his debacle,” a senior Iowa Democratic official told CNN.
