Sanders scores decisive win in Nevada
Biden distant second, but counting on strong showing in South Carolina
Bernie Sanders strengthened his front-runner position for the Democratic presidential nomination with a decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, while Joe Biden was on track for a second-place finish that would give his struggling campaign new hope.
A self-described democratic socialist, Sanders rode a wave of backing from a diverse coalition of young and middle-aged voters, Latinos, union members and white college-educated women to a win in Nevada, according to Edison Research, showing signs of expanding support for his surging campaign beyond his long-standing core.
“We have put together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition that is going to not only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep the country,” Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, told cheering supporters in San Antonio, Texas.
Biden, the former vice-president, appeared to score a badly needed strong finish after poor showings in the first two contests in Iowa and New Hampshire for the party’s nomination to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.
Sanders’s triumph in the first racially diverse state suggests his unapologetic message of social and economic justice, including his signature pledge to provide universal health care for all Americans, is resonating with a broader coalition of Democratic voters.
For Biden and other moderates who argue that Sanders is too liberal to beat Trump and who have been trying to blunt his momentum, the job has become much harder.
Sanders had 47% of the county convention delegates in Nevada with 43% of the precincts reported.
Biden was a distant second to Sanders with 21%, but ahead of former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, in third with 15%.
“The press is ready to declare people dead quickly, but we’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re going to win,” Biden told supporters in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who had been looking to jumpstart her campaign after poor finishes in the first two states, was again trailing in a disappointing fourth with more than 9% in Nevada, where voters poured into more than 250 sites around the state.
Senator Amy Klobuchar and activist billionaire Tom Steyer were well back at 4%.
The race now begins to broaden across the country, with the next primary on February 29 in South Carolina, followed by the Super Tuesday contests in 14 states on March 3 that pick more than one-third of the pledged delegates who will help select a Democratic nominee.
Biden, vice-president under former President Barack Obama, is counting on a strong showing in South Carolina, which has a large bloc of black voters. In Nevada, entrance polls showed Biden led among
African Americans with 36%, followed by Sanders with 27%.
The Super Tuesday states will bring former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has not been competing in the four early voting states but has been rising in opinion polls, into the race.
On Twitter, Trump appeared to be enjoying the Democratic race.
“Looks like Crazy Bernie is doing well in the Great State of Nevada. Biden & the rest look weak, & no way Mini Mike,” Trump wrote, the last a reference to Bloomberg.
Sanders was aided in Nevada by strong support from the six in 10 voters who said they backed a government-run Medicare for All, the Edison entrance poll showed.
The entrance poll showed that Sanders led in Nevada across all age groups except for those older than 65.
About 54% of Latino voters backed him, as well as 24% of college-educated white women and 34% of those who have a union member in their family.