BERNIN’ DOWN THE HOUSE
Sanders roasts rival Dems in Nevada
Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses yesterday, putting the leftist socialist on a clear path to the Democratic nomination for president. With the South Carolina primary coming next Saturday, quickly followed by Super Tuesday balloting in 14 states, the moderate wing of the party now has a tough task trying to stop him.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory in the Nevada presidential caucuses Saturday night, solidifying both his front-runner status and fears among Democratic opponents that he’s too liberal — and yet unstoppable.
Returns early Sunday showed the self-proclaimed democratic socialist with a solid 26-point lead over his closest rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, establishing Sanders as the clear front-runner for the nomination.
“Don’t tell anybody,” Sanders quipped Saturday night at a rally in San Antonio.
“I don’t want to get them nervous. But we’re going to win the Democratic primary in Texas,” Sanders told the cheering crowd.
Sanders has already shifted his sights to Texas and Super Tuesday, positioning himself to further grow his delegate lead during the 14-state sweepstakes March 3.
Biden’s lackluster performance, meanwhile, was still the strongest showing yet for the former veep, who fell far short in the party’s first two contests.
“Y’all did it for me! Now we’re on our way to South Carolina!” where the next primary will be held Feb. 29, Biden told supporters in Las Vegas.
“The press is ready to declare people dead quickly,” he said. “But we’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re gonna win.”
The Democrats’ previous contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire, both ended in near-ties between Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
But those states are overwhelmingly white — which made Nevada, whose electorate is about 40 percent black and Hispanic, a major test for Buttigieg’s viability as the campaign moves to similarly diverse states.
Buttigieg, who was positioned to come in third, slammed Sanders at a post-caucus rally in Las Vegas.
“Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” he said, imploring the party to turn away from the front-runner in upcoming contests.
With just over 40 percent of precincts tallied, Sanders had 46.82 percent of the vote; Biden had 20.70 percent, Buttigieg had 15.14 percent, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren was in fourth place with 9.48 percent.
Tom Steyer was in fifth and Amy Klobuchar was in sixth; both had just under 4 percent.
President Trump exulted in Sanders’ apparent victory.
“Looks like Crazy Bernie is doing well in the Great State of Nevada,” Trump tweeted.
“Biden & the rest look weak, & no way Mini Mike can restart his campaign after the worst debate performance in the history of Presidential Debates.”
“Congratulations Bernie, & don’t let them take it away from you!” Trump added — a nod to the angst over Sanders’ surge among Democratic Party leaders, who fear his name at the top of the ticket will wreak havoc on less extreme Dems running for Congress and other offices in November.
It took five hours for party officials to tally its first 10 percent of the caucus vote, confirming worries about behind-the-scenes trouble with its counting procedures.
Nearly 75,000 people cast early ballots ahead of Saturday’s vote, the first contest in a state where whites make up less than half of the population.
Nevada’s caucus process is similar to the one used in Iowa on Feb. 3, which dissolved into chaos when a glitchy new app developed to help count the vote failed to function.
Nevada abandoned plans to use the same app and cobbled together a system that uses iPads preloaded with a new tool to count the vote and incorporate early-vote totals. Party officials insisted that precinct volunteers had been thoroughly trained, but warned that final results might not be tallied Saturday.
The caucus in the Bellagio ballroom on the Vegas Strip was packed with housekeepers, union members and voters of color, many sporting T-shirts reading
“Unidos con Bernie” — “United with Bernie” in Spanish.
“He’s the most authentic candidate to actually support workers,” Bellagio bartender David Montenegro, 32, told The Post. “The more people I talked to, it’s either Bernie or Trump, to be honest.”
The initial headcount at that precinct showed strong support for both Sanders and Biden. Buttigieg didn’t rate at all. “Bernie’s way too far to the left,” said a man who identified himself only as Douglas, 61, a Bellagio caucuser who threw his support to Biden after Warren was deemed nonviable.
“I hear people talk about this all the time like, ‘Are we going to have to vote for Trump again?’ Because we had a lot of people that were Democrats that voted for Trump” in 2016.