DES MOINES — Every four years since the 1970s, the political gods have smiled upon Iowa, endowing its residents with uncommon power to set the course of national politics as the first nominating contest.
For that privilege, Iowa has found itself — more this year than ever — in the position of defending its perch. Why should a state so disproportionately white take such a leading role, especially for a Democratic Party that prides itself on its diversity? Why is a hodgepodge of gatherings in school gymnasiums the pinnacle of American democracy?
On Monday evening, as the byzantine system left results unreported well after state Democrats had predicted being able to lend some clarity, Iowa’s precarious standing appeared to take another hit.
“The integrity of the results is paramount,” Mandy McClure, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party, said in an initial statement as the wait persisted. “We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the I.D.P. is reporting out three data sets for the first time.”
Later, she added that the party had “found inconsistencies” in the reporting of results. “This is not a hack or an intrusion,” Ms. McClure said. “The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”
For a party that had worked for three years and three months to begin the process of trying to defeat President Trump, the caucus stumble seemed to register as another reason for angst in a season with many — another surreal turn in a political moment defined by them.
All year, Iowa Democrats had grown consumed with identifying the candidate best positioned to counter Mr. Trump this fall. They filled creaky school auditoriums and union halls and overstuffed coffee shops to weigh and measure a roster of contenders that exceeded 20 at its peak.
Progressive or moderate? Veteran statesman or relative newcomer? Options abounded.
Late Monday night, at least, the state’s verdict remained sealed.
The state party changed its rules for this year to accommodate concerns that the caucus process was not transparent. Instead of reporting just one number at the end of the night, it would report, on a rolling basis, three numbers per precinct — a delegate count and the amount of support in both the first and second rounds. But instead of making things clearer, the new process seemed only to muddle matters early in the night.
With no hard results to reckon with, several candidates were liberated to give the cheeriest version of their stump speech, hustling to the stage before any math could dampen the mood.
“We’re going to walk out of here with our share of delegates,” former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told supporters. “We feel good about where we are.”
The caucuses, like so much else these last three years, were proceeding in the outsize shadow of executive chaos in Washington — an impeachment trial that at once consumed valuable news media oxygen ordinarily afforded to the presidential election and temporarily removed several candidates from the campaign trail altogether. The coming days, which are expected to include a State of the Union address and an acquittal for Mr. Trump in the Senate, should only be of a piece.
Yet despite the recent competition for attention, perhaps no one has felt the burden of the primary calendar more than the Iowa caucusgoer, charged with setting Democrats on a path toward victory in November against a president viewed by the party as a singular threat. For some Iowans, the pressure proved paralyzing, freezing them in indecision. In interviews for months leading up to the caucuses, many struggled to reconcile the candidate they liked with the candidate they thought others would like — neighbors, family members, friends in other states.
Many were also cognizant that a murky result would weaken Iowa’s claim that it acts as a springboard to the nomination. And now, with Monday evening unfolding unevenly, they know it is likely the rest of the country could inherit their anxiety, too.
If Iowa did not supply answers on the timeline it usually does, the pre-primary campaign of the past year had already set the direction of the 2020 contest in lasting ways. After a midterm triumph premised often on the success of female and nonwhite candidates, the remaining roster of top contenders is older, whiter and more male-dominated than many Democrats had initially hoped, with front-runners like Senator Bernie Sanders and Mr. Biden.
“Voters are just so terrified of Donald Trump being re-elected that they are bending over backwards to avoid anything that looks or feels like 2016,” said Meredith Kelly, a top aide to the failed 2020 presidential campaign of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. “And one very obvious factor was that a woman ultimately lost to Donald Trump.”
In her own bid, Senator Elizabeth Warren has appeared perpetually mindful of this mental hurdle for many voters, presenting herself as the candidate of “unity” and urging Iowans not to fear voting with their hearts.
“I am not afraid,” she said last year, setting off on a riff she would repeat often, “and for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid, either.”
If nothing else, Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders have often succeeded in focusing the primary on the merits of progressive policy. With Mr. Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., emphasizing a more consensus-minded pragmatism, the senators have argued for vast economic upheaval and turned a debate over a “Medicare for all” health-care system into the campaign’s most substantive running dialogue.
Warren supporters chanted the tagline of her wealth tax (“two cents!”) as if requesting a song at a concert. Sanders fans nodded with purpose through his signature swipes at the billionaire class — particularly after two of its members, Michael R. Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, joined the race.
The campaign of Mr. Bloomberg, who is not contesting the early states, spent the day merrily sending out news releases about contests scheduled for March or later, when his functionally bottomless resources are expected to sustain his bid. But despite Mr. Bloomberg’s recent climb in some national polls, progressives insist they have tapped into a zeal that cannot be purchased.
“The grass-roots energy is clearly in the progressive wing of the coalition,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, which endorsed Ms. Warren. “Primaries are absolutely the place where you vote your heart, and you vote your values.”
At the same time, there can be only one nominee. And as the nomination battle heads to New Hampshire and beyond, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren will be fighting for progressive supremacy, with both hoping to establish themselves as the left’s liberal standard-bearer.
For a year, the two smothered each other in praise, pulling back if any remark was construed as an attack. On the debate stage, they presented a unified front against the moderate candidates flanking them. But last month, their carefully cultivated unity ruptured after reports that Mr. Sanders had told Ms. Warren privately in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency. He has denied saying this.
Of perhaps greater concern to many Democrats is the incessant rehashing of 2016 slights, with supporters of Mr. Sanders and Hillary Clinton — who recently insisted that “nobody likes” the man she bested in the primary four years ago — squabbling anew in the days before the caucus.
Last week, a top Sanders surrogate, Representative Rashida Tlaib, joined a crowd of Iowans in booing at the mention of Mrs. Clinton, who remains to many Sanders supporters an avatar of corporate centrism.
“The haters,” Ms. Tlaib vowed, “will shut up on Monday when we win.”
Ms. Tlaib apologized afterward for the booing — an episode that reminded Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Tlaib’s congressional ally, about a regret of her own.
“If I could have one wish,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview, “I should have asked Santa to never have us relitigate 2016 ever again.”