Sanders joins Buttigieg in declaring victory in Iowa

With no final results yet from the Democratic Party caucuses in Iowa held three days ago, Bernie Sanders on Thursday decided to declare victory based on the results so far, basing his declaration on his lead in the popular vote in the caucuses, as Sanders jockeyed with Pete Buttigieg to grab a boost for next week's New Hampshire Primary.

"That screwup has been extremely unfair to the people of Iowa," Sanders said of the vote counting fiasco during a news conference at his New Hampshire headquarters.

"What has happened with the Iowa Democratic Party is an outrage, that they were that unprepared," Sanders added. "It has been unfair to the candidates, all of the candidates and all of their supporters."

"We won an eight person election by some six thousand votes," Sanders added, focusing on the first ballot popular vote taken at the Iowa Caucuses, expressing frustration with the entire situation.

Buttigieg has declared victory based on a separate metric in those same results, the number of state delegates to the Iowa Democratic Party convention, where Buttigieg has a slight edge.

As of Thursday, 97 percent of precincts from Iowa's Democratic Party caucuses have reported their results, though the New York Times reported that the results were 'riddled with efforts and inconsistencies.'

The remarks of Sanders from his New Hampshire headquarters came as the national Democratic Party chief, Tom Perez, called for a 'recanvass' of the Iowa votes to make sure the results were correct.

"Enough is enough," Perez stated on Twitter.

Meanwhile, there was no sign the Iowa results would be official by next Tuesday, when New Hampshire votes in the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary.

"Maybe we might want the decisions of the Iowa caucus before the November election," Sanders said.