Joe Biden Admits 'We Took a Gut Punch in Iowa'

Former Vice President Joe Biden admitted Wednesday that the first round of his fight for the Democratic presidential nomination did not go his way, but vowed to keep battling

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Biden said while campaigning in New Hampshire, which holds its primary Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. “We took a gut punch in Iowa. The whole process took a gut punch.”

Although final results from Monday’s Iowa caucuses are not yet in, the most recent numbers with 96 percent of precincts reporting show Biden in fourth place with 15.8 percent of state delegate equivalents, The New York Times reported.

Pete Buttigieg led with 26.2 percent of the delegates, followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 26.1 percent.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was third at 18.2 percent, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was fifth at 12.2 percent.

Biden, who has been leading most national polls from the day he entered the race, said he was not giving up.

“I’m going to fight for this nomination,” Biden said, according to the Washington Examiner. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m counting on New Hampshire.”

Speaking from New Hampshire, Biden took on Sanders and Buttigieg directly, saying Sanders could tarnish other Democrats by being branded a socialist by President Donald Trump, WMUR reported.

“Every Democrat will have to carry the label Sen. Sanders has chosen for himself,” Biden said. “I don’t criticize him. He calls himself a democratic socialist. Well, we’re already seeing what Donald Trump is going to do with that.”

Biden said Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, lacks experience.

“I have great respect for Mayor Pete and his service to this nation, but I do believe it’s a risk — to be just straight up with you — for this party to nominate someone who’s never held an office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 people in Indiana,” Biden said.

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Sanders leads in New Hampshire with 25.6 percent support.

Biden is a distant second at 17.1 percent, while Buttigieg is at 15 percent and Warren is garnering 13.9 percent support.

An Emerson tracking poll in New Hampshire conducted between Feb. 2 and Feb. 4 put Sanders well out in front at 32 percent, with Buttigieg second at 17 percent followed by Biden at 13 percent, while Warren and Klobuchar were tied at 11 percent.

But the Biden camp is not pushing the panic button.

“You should look at the first four states as a package,” Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders told Time. “We feel good that when we get to Super Tuesday after the first four states, we will be in a strong position.”

Although there are only two surveys in the average, the RealClearPolitics polling average for South Carolina does show Biden with 30.5 percent support, well above the 17.6 percent support for Sanders, who’s in second.

Some Biden backers were downright nonchalant about the Iowa results.

“What happened last night is nothing happened,” Florida attorney John Morgan, a Biden donor, told the McClatchy news service. “When I woke up this morning, everybody had declared victory. I kept reading my paper here to see if Kamala Harris had declared victory, too.”

“I didn’t have any expectation that he would be first or second,” Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania added. “Where he is in the final tally, or at least what we now know of the beginnings of the final tally, is kind of where I expected him to be.”

Casey said with New Hampshire adjacent to states represented by Sanders and Warren, expecting a win there would be unrealistic.