Sanders tops the field in Nevada
Caucus win hands senator delegate lead
LAS VEGAS — Bernie Sanders scored a victory Saturday in Nevada’s presidential caucuses.
While Sanders’ victory was decisive, a cluster of candidates fought for any momentum heading into next-up South Carolina and then Super Tuesday on March 3. Former Vice President Joe Biden came in second, and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren were trailing far behind Sanders.
The 78-year-old senator from Vermont won by rallying his base and tapping into support from Nevada’s large Hispanic community as the Democratic contest moved for the first time into a state with a significant minority population.
Sanders left Nevada and claimed victory from San Antonio in Texas, a state that offers one of the biggest delegate troves in just 10 days on Super Tuesday.
“We’re going to win this election. We are going to win here in Texas,” he said.
Sanders added, “We are going to win across the country because the American people are sick and tired of a president who lies all of the time.”
“We are bringing our people together,” he declared. “In Nevada we have just brought together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition which is not only going to win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country.”
Nevada was the thirdstraight contest in which Sanders won the popular vote. Five other candidates split the half of voters who were not supporting Sanders, making it difficult for them to win the 15% minimum support needed to win delegates.
Entrance polls broadcast
on CNN suggest Sanders had broad support across almost all demographic groups — especially Hispanics, which gave him 53% support. Biden won among Nevada Democrats 65 and older and among black voters.
Sanders also attracted twothirds of voters under 30 and nearly half of people between 30 and 44 years old, the entrance polls showed.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, also dominated caucus attendees who describe themselves as very liberal or somewhat liberal, well ahead of his progressive rival Warren. He was even ahead with those who said they were moderate or conservative, with 25% support, edging Biden, who had 23%.
Two-thirds of Nevada caucusgoers said they preferred a single-payer health system like Sanders’ Medicare for All. Sanders won about 49% of those voters, according to entrance polls.
BIDEN LOOKS TO S.C.
Biden took the stage in Las Vegas and called his second-place standing a win. He said he would seize the momentum and win in South Carolina next week.
“I’m a Democrat for a simple reason. I ain’t a socialist, I ain’t a plutocrat. I’m a Democrat. And I’m proud of it,” he said. “I think it’s time we get moving. I think it’s time we unite the party first.”
Biden said the Russians will continue to support Trump and Sanders, whose campaign acknowledged Friday that he was briefed last month by U.S. officials about Russian efforts to boost his candidacy.
“Let’s give Trump exactly what he doesn’t want,” Biden told his supporters. “Let’s give him you and Joe Biden as the nominee.”
Saturday’s win built on Sanders’ win earlier this month in the New Hampshire primary. He essentially tied for first place in the Iowa caucuses with Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has sought to position himself as an ideological counter to Sanders’ progressive politics.
Buttigieg, who was in third place in Nevada’s early results, also called for party unity, but not behind Sanders, whose strict progressivism he said “leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans.”
“Before we rush to nominate Sen. Sanders as our one shot to take on this president, let’s take a sober look at what’s at stake,” the former mayor said.
“I believe the only way to truly deliver any of the progressive changes we care about is to be a nominee who actually gives a d**n about the effect you are having, from the top of the ticket, on those crucial, front-line House and Senate Democrats running to win, who we need to win, to make sure our agenda is more than just words on a page,” he said.
Buttigieg said Sanders has a “vision of capitalism as the root of all evil.” And he added that Sanders’ political vision would “reorder the economy in ways most Democrats — let alone most Americans — don’t support.”
Buttigieg called for a broad Democratic coalition. But he said Sanders’ army of online supporters — often referred to as “Bernie Bros” — threaten, intimate and harass the very same people needed to beat Trump.
Still in the fight is Warren, who needed a spark to revive her stalled bid; billionaire Tom Steyer, who spent more than $12 million on Nevada television ads, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who hoped to prove her strong New Hampshire finish was no fluke.
Klobuchar, campaigning Saturday night in her home state of Minnesota, claimed Nevada success no matter her poor showing. “As usual I think we have exceeded expectations.”
New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who dominated the political conversation last week after a poor debate-stage debut, wasn’t on the ballot. He’s betting everything on a series of delegate-rich states that begin voting next month.
The former New York mayor has already dropped more than $468 million on advertising around the country and will appear on ballots starting on Super Tuesday, March 3.
Trump took to social media after the early results were announced.
“Looks like Crazy Bernie is doing well in the Great State of Nevada. Biden & the rest look weak,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations Bernie, & don’t let them take it away from you!”
“There is no denying that big government socialism dominated again as Bernie Sanders remained the leader of the leftist pack,” said a statement from Brad Parscale, Trump campaign manager.
Nevada’s Republican Party on Saturday awarded all 25 of its delegates to Trump. The Nevada party had already canceled its caucuses. Instead, the state Republican committee voted by acclimation to give Trump all of its delegates at the same time as Democrats were tallying caucus votes, according to party executive director Will Sexauer.
No other Republican qualified for the balloting by the state committee, Sexauer said.
This gives Trump 86 of the 87 delegates awarded so far. Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld won one delegate in Iowa. South Carolina, which votes next Saturday, also had canceled its primary. Its delegates will not be bound to any candidate.
SMOOTH SAILING
After the chaos of Iowa’s caucuses, there were concerns about Nevada’s similar setup. But no major problems showed up.
At noon, under sunny skies, dozens of uniformed housekeepers and casino workers cast ballots in the Bellagio, one of seven casino-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip that were among 200 locations statewide that hosted caucuses.
The first presidential contest in the West tested the candidates’ strength with black and Hispanic voters for the first time in 2020. Nevada’s population aligns more with the U.S. as a whole, compared with Iowa and New Hampshire: 29% Hispanic, 10% black and 9% Asian-American and Pacific Islander.
The Nevada verdict represented the third in a primary season that will span all 50 states and several U.S. territories, ending only at the party’s national convention in July. But with two more rounds of voting scheduled over the next 10 days — including Super Tuesday’s big delegate haul — the party may identify a consensus candidate long before the convention.
Unlike state primaries and the November election, which are run by government officials, caucuses are overseen by state parties.
Nevada Democrats sought to minimize problems by creating multiple redundancies in their reporting system, relying on results called in by phone, a paper worksheet filled out by caucus organizers, a photo of that worksheet sent in by text message and electronic results captured with a Google form.
In addition, it appeared Nevada Democrats were able to navigate a complicated process for adding early voting to the caucus process. Nearly 75,000 people cast early ballots over a four-day period, and the party processed those in time for Saturday so they could be integrated into the in-person vote.
At the Bellagio caucus site, 41-year-old Christian Nielsen, a scuba diver for the Cirque du Soleil show O, said he backed Sanders because he believes the country needs a “major change in the White House.”
“We need somebody in the White House who has been on the right side of history for their entire career, somebody who stands with the working class, and will make things more fair for everybody,” Nielsen said.
The Democrats’ 2020 nomination fight shifted beyond Nevada even before the final results were known.
Only Biden, Buttigieg and Steyer were still in the state when news of Sanders’ victory was announced.
Sanders and Klobuchar spent the night in Super Tuesday states, and Buttigieg was headed to a third, Virginia. Warren, who began Saturday in Las Vegas, was to finish the day in Washington state, which hosts its election on March 10 but has already begun offering early voting.
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Michelle L. Price, Jonathan J. Cooper, Brian Slodysko, Alexandra Jaffe, Christina A. Cassidy, Yvonne Gonzalez, Ken Ritter and Nicholas Riccardi of The Associated Press; and by Gregory Korte, Emma Kinery, Jennifer Epstein, Tyler Pager and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou of Bloomberg News.