(Bloomberg) -- The final Iowa results could come two weeks after caucus-goers gathered in the Hawkeye State.
The Iowa Democratic Party announced Wednesday that it will begin a limited re-canvass on Sunday, double-checking tallies from specific precincts requested by campaigns for Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.
The party will send the two campaigns information on costs on Friday, giving them 24 hours to decide if they want to move ahead with a re-canvass.
If they do, the process is expected to last two days, meaning it will end more than a week after the New Hampshire primary and just days before Nevada’s caucuses.
In related news, former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Vice News that Iowa “forfeited its chance to be number one” due to problems with reporting results on caucus night.
Turnout Up in New Hampshire (1 p.m.)
Turnout in the New Hampshire Democratic primary was up, easing concerns among party leaders after low turnout in the Iowa caucuses.
With 97% of precincts reporting, 294,566 ballots have been counted in the Democratic presidential primary.
That’s more than the number of votes cast in the last competitive Democratic primaries in the Granite state: 287,322 in 2008 and 250,983 in 2016.
Even after accounting for population growth, the turnout numbers show that Democrats in the state are enthusiastic, a positive sign for party leaders hoping to win the traditional swing state in November.
Turnout was also slightly higher than New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner’s prediction of 292,000 votes in the Democratic side, which was based on absentee ballots cast ahead of Election Day.
Sanders’s Manager Says He’s Getting to Trump 11 a.m.
Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager says the candidate is getting to President Donald Trump, but Sanders wouldn’t be the first Democrat to do so.
On Tuesday, Faiz Shakir tweeted a video of Trump saying he’d rather face former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg than Sanders because “Sanders has real followers.”
“Dear Bernie supporters, you’ve gotten inside the head of Donald Trump,” Shakir wrote.
But if that’s true, then so have a lot of other Democrats at one point or another.
In March, CNBC reported that Trump asked advisers if he should be worried about facing Joe Biden. In June, the New York Times reported that Trump was worried about facing Kamala Harris. In September, the Daily Beast reported that Trump asked advisers if Elizabeth Warren was a “fighter.”
And on Tuesday, Politico reported that Trump is “fixated” on Bloomberg.
(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
Trump Drove Turnout for a GOP Challenger, Too (9:31 a.m.)
Donald Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale boasted Tuesday that the president received more votes in the New Hampshire primary than Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan when they ran uncontested re-election campaigns.
But there’s an important caveat to those numbers: Trump’s not entirely uncontested.
The president faces an extremely long-shot rival for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.
The neighboring state politician received 13,105 votes in Tuesday’s primary, with 89% of precincts reporting. That’s not bad for a candidate who has spent only $1.7 million on his bid so far.
Trump was helped by energetic campaigning, including a last-minute rally in Manchester -- an unusual move for an incumbent president who isn’t facing a serious challenge in a primary. But that higher turnout also included a substantial number of Republicans who backed a long-shot against him.
Nevada Union Warns About Sanders’s Plans (7:56 a.m.)
An influential Nevada union is raising concerns about Bernie Sanders’s plans for Medicare for All.
In a flier first obtained by the Nevada Independent, the Culinary Union notes that the Vermont senator would “End Culinary Healthcare,” its prized union-negotiated health insurance.
The union, which represents 60,000 hotel and casino workers in Nevada, is an organizing powerhouse that has long played a big role in turning out Democratic votes.
In an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning, second-place finisher Pete Buttigieg pointed to the Culinary Union’s concerns as a question he would raise in Nevada.
Like a number of labor groups this year, the Culinary Union has not yet decided if it will make an endorsement in the presidential primary ahead of the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses.
In 2008, it endorsed Barack Obama, but in 2016 it stayed on the sidelines of the 2016 fight between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Blankfein Says Russia Would Root for Sanders (7:06 a.m.)
Wall Street has been surprisingly laid back about Bernie Sanders’ rise in the Democratic presidential primary, but that may be about to change.
Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, for one, spoke up after the Vermont senator’s first-place finish in New Hampshire to argue that he would “ruin our economy.”
“If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US,” he tweeted. “Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around.”
A registered Democrat, Blankfein last tweeted three months ago to criticize Elizabeth Warren for vilifying Wall Street, raising eyebrows when he said that “tribalism is just in her DNA.”
Although Wall Streeters had been fairly vocal about Warren’s surge last fall, the market has been calm as Sanders has taken the lead, because investors either don’t think the self-defined democratic socialist can win or doubt he can implement his most far-reaching proposals due to congressional skepticism.
COMING UP
Democratic presidential candidates will meet for their next debate on Feb. 19 in Las Vegas.
Nevada holds its caucuses on Feb. 22, and South Carolina has a primary on Feb. 29.
(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
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