Iowa caucuses live updates: 2020 Democrats make their final pitches

The presidential candidates are making their final pitches in Iowa for the first nominating contest of the 2020 election.On Monday night, caucusgoers will gather at nearly 1,700 sites across the state to tally support for their preferred candidates, with 41 pledged delegates up for grabs.The high-stakes contest will play a major role in determining who is a legitimate contender in the race. Candidates in the crowded Democratic field need to meet a threshold of support (at least 15 percent of attendees at most caucus sites) to become viable, or they will see supporters move on to someone else.Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts on the latest news.Ben Popken and Maura BarrettAt least a dozen precinct leaders across Iowa are having issues downloading or logging into a new smartphone application used to report the caucus night results, potentially delaying the counting of the first round of results.Chairs of four different counties said they had precinct leaders who experienced issues with the app, from receiving an error that their login wasn’t recognized to missing a cutoff time for downloading it. Timm BETTENDORF, Iowa — This isn’t how Sen. Amy Klobuchar thought the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses would go.Instead of long stretches on the road for the kind of grassroots, folksy campaigning she perfected running for office next door, in her home state of Minnesota, Klobuchar spent the last two weeks in Washington, consumed by President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.In her final, frenzied spin across Iowa over the weekend, the senator offered a simple closing argument: The allegations against Trump — and the furious partisan fights stirred by his impeachment — are exactly why she's running.“I really see this election and my candidacy as really an extension of that, because what this is, this election, yes, it’s an economic check,” she told voters Saturday in a bike shop that served as overflow for the hundreds of people packed into a brewery next door. But in a caucus state, that means heading out to your local high school gym and very possibly competing against your spouse in real time all evening, trying to persuade friends and neighbors to support your chosen candidate — and not your partner’s.Sands is supporting former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Busiek is backing Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.Sands, a former Des Moines school board member, has caucused every presidential election year since 1979. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote Declaration of Independence!” Busiek, a former news director at the CBS affiliate in Des Moines, was never able to air his political views publicly, but now that he is newly retired, he's attending his first caucus.He called Klobuchar "bright, articulate and calm," adding that she was "very good" during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, "very much the adult in the room." He added that he likes her "experience, age and emphasis on practical solutions" and that she’s a "Midwesterner.”Sands says she wishes they were supporting the same candidate and adds that she hopes they don’t wind up going head-to-head for the exact same voters Monday night. But those candidates are also in competition with each other.Former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who won the Iowa caucuses in 2004, told NBC News on Sunday that there’s usually a lot of talk but not much actual action.“There are some conversations, but I think too much is made of the capacity to execute because people in Iowa are very independent,” Kerry said.