Sanders dominated among Latins and young voters, they showed entry polls. But it had great success among the demographic groups, achieving equality with its rivals among moderate voters.
But Sanders has the largest base army, has shown a varied coalition in Nevada, has more money in his campaign bank account than anyone who is a billionaire, and has an edge in California and Texas, two Super Tuesday states.
The Vermont senator answered some important questions he faced on Saturday. Perhaps the most important of them: he won five of seven casino casino sites – revealing that members of the powerful 60,000-member Culinary Union have widely supported him, despite union leadership opposing Sanders because they favor the special health plan they had. negotiated on its “Medicare for All” proposal.
Here are six takeaways from Nevada caucuses:
Sanders gets a win – and a validation – in Nevada
Nevada gave Sanders more than a clear win on Saturday – it provided a surprising validation of his campaign strategy.
In a state with a Latin population of around 30% and a solid organized work base, no one else in the field came close.
The results here suggest that Sanders is also ready for similar successes in Super Tuesday states such as California, the crown jewel of the primary and Texas, another state full of delegates where the Latin vote could be decisive.
Sanders was so confident in a Nevada win that he left the state to campaign in California on Friday and then spent Saturday jumping around Texas, with stops in El Paso and San Antonio. Sunday will hold a rally in Austin.
The next calendar, however, is South Carolina, another state where Sanders showed signs of rising trend in the recent survey. A nice ending in the state of Palmetto, where Hillary Clinton swept him away in 2016, could start clearing the field even before the Super Tuesday states weigh in.
There is no clear alternative to Sanders
In Saturday’s Las Vegas speeches, Biden and Buttigieg previewed new attacks on Sanders.
Biden referred to a report that Sanders had considered a primary challenge for former President Barack Obama. “I promise you, I wasn’t talking about running in Democratic primaries against him in 2012,” he said.
Buttigieg’s entire speech was at odds with Sanders. “We can prioritize ideological purity or inclusive victory,” he said. “We can call people’s names online or we can call them in our movement. We can tighten a narrow and hardcore base or open the tent to a new, broad and generous American coalition.”
Biden promises to fight in South Carolina
Biden said in Las Vegas on Saturday that he is “alive and we are coming back and we will win.”
But make no mistake: this is not going well for the former vice president.
He has now finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and hopes for a distant second in Nevada. In three runs for the 32-year Democratic presidential nomination, Biden has never won a state. An example of how far his fall was: in almost all Nevada polls in 2019 and January 2020, Biden was ahead of Sanders.
Unable to consolidate moderate democratic voters, Biden will likely also have problems with donors, who are split between the former vice president and Buttigieg. He is also sidelined by Bloomberg’s presence in the race.
Biden on Saturday predicted that he will win in South Carolina, where a huge advantage with African American voters kept him ahead in the polls. Aside from a clear victory there would almost certainly be a fatal blow to his campaign.
Unfortunate times of Warren
But that rebound couldn’t help her on Saturday in Nevada.
About 75,000 early votes – a large part of the state total – had already been cast and the early voting window had closed before the debate took place.
Now, the democratic race moves to South Carolina, where Sanders and Biden have long been the strongest contenders, in part because they have stronger support among black voters who make up more than half of the democratic electorate compared to their rivals. There will be another debate there – and then another opportunity for Warren to hire Bloomberg as a proxy for President Donald Trump in the fall and raise his fundraising again.
But it could be headed for Super Tuesday, the most important day of the primary democratic calendar, with nothing better than a third place in one of the first four states to vote.
Steyer cannot keep his promises
“If we win tomorrow, we will win the whole damn thing,” he said at his pre-caucus rally Friday evening. “If we win tomorrow, we win everything!”
Steyer didn’t win. It is likely that it will end up a lot behind the likes of Sanders, Biden and Buttigieg.
The billionaire now transforms his campaign into South Carolina, a state in which he has already invested over $ 21 million in advertising. But, after his behind-the-scenes performance in Nevada, Steyer’s campaign is limping into what may be his final state.
Steyer’s performance could also predict problems for Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who spent nearly half a billion dollars on television, digital and radio advertisements. Unlike Steyer, however, Bloomberg has also spent millions on staff to build a national operation of over 2,000 people across the country.
Caucus in question
Why do caucuses exist?
Nevada performed far better than Iowa, where a flawed app, an unprepared state party and confused volunteers plunged the caucuses into chaos earlier this month. Nevada did not experience the same problems and CNN was able to throw a winner on the night of the caucus.
But the trial here in Nevada has been far from fluid. The biggest problem: the results of over 2,000 Nevada fences took hours to publish.
Sanders’ advisors fought to keep the caucuses as part of the nomination process after the 2016 elections, and this strategy has paid off the Senator from Vermont.
But the slow results have stifled possible momentum for other candidates who have done well in Iowa and Nevada and have allowed candidates like Klobuchar, who have done badly in Nevada, to say, “As usual, I think we have passed the expectations “.
Even more critically, caucus issues have questioned the credibility of the nomination process, allowing Republicans to attack Democrats for caucus mishaps.
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