Can anyone stop Bernie Sanders? 5 takeaways from the Nevada caucuses
Bernie Sanders’ overwhelming victory in the Nevada caucuses significantly strengthened his chances of steamrolling toward the Democratic presidential nomination, leaving his rivals with difficult strategic decisions to make as the race spreads across the country over the next ten days.
Sanders’ double-digit win in the first voting state featuring a diverse population displayed the growing demographic breadth of his coalition as he dominated with Latino voters and captured a significant slice of the African-American electorate.
“We have just put together a multi-generational, multi-racial coalition, which is not only going to win in Nevada, but is going to sweep this country,” Sanders said at a rally in San Antonio, Texas, which votes on March 3.
The crushing result means Sanders’ rivals will be forced to confront him more urgently and aggressively to try to sever his mounting momentum heading into the next contests in South Carolina and Super Tuesday.
Sanders now looks like a threat to Joe Biden’s firewall in South Carolina, where the former vice president’s lead had shrunk to single digits even before Nevadans voted.
What’s more, recent polls have shown Sanders with leads in California and Texas, the pair of mammoth Super Tuesday states that will dispense more than 600 delegates between them on March 3. That’s the day Sanders could amass a delegate lead that is nearly impossible to overtake.
Here are five takeaways from the Nevada caucuses:
Sanders Expands His Coalition
The candidate who was once supposed to struggle uniting the party appears to be doing exactly that.
Sanders didn’t just easily win the Nevada caucuses — he won a broad cross-section of Democratic voters, according to entrance polls, including union members, whites, Hispanics, and even moderates.
The broad support explains how he was able to win a greater share of the vote in Nevada than he did in either Iowa or New Hampshire, where he was stuck below 30 percent of the vote. And it aligns with national polls that show the Vermont senator on the rise and above 30 percent support, while his rivals struggle to get out of the teens.
It wasn’t necessarily supposed to go like this for the democratic socialist. Many party leaders vocally opposed him, and his maximalist brand of politics was supposed to alienate many rank-and-file moderate Democrats. Parts of the party, of course, remain dismissive of Sanders, but no other candidate has proven an ability to expand their base like he has.
Proving that he can attract a racially diverse coalition is of critical importance for Sanders, who in large part lost the 2016 Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton because of her overwhelming support among nonwhite voters. Not only will it quiet criticism his supporters are too white, his backing from Latino and younger black voters portends well for his chances in next month’s delegate-rich Super Tuesday states of California and Texas — and possibly even next week’s contest in heavily African-American South Carolina, where Joe Biden has long been the favorite.
The Moderate Muddle
For each of the four candidates who trailed Sanders, the opportunities to prove their viability are wearing thin. Biden and Pete Buttigieg were fighting for second place Saturday night, though the former mayor could still claim to track ahead of the former vice president in the all important delegate fight. A universally lauded debate performance wasn’t enough to vault Elizabeth Warren ahead of either of them. And Amy Klobuchar managed to muster only single-digit support.
Only Buttigieg appeared to fully understand the gravity of the challenge, delivering a sober-eyed speech that laid out a direct contrast with Sanders and noted that his was the only campaign to have defeated the front-runner anywhere -- (by a single delegate in Iowa).
“Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” Buttigieg said in Las Vegas before jetting to Colorado.
The stark reality is that if they all remain in the race through Super Tuesday, Sanders will be the beneficiary. If any of these candidates genuinely believe that a Sanders nomination will significantly increase the likelihood of a second term for President Donald Trump, this moment might be the last real chance to consolidate and attempt to stop it.
But as David Plouffe, former President Barack Obama’s campaign manager noted on MSNBC, an act of self-sacrifice is hard to find in the kind of people who pursue the presidency.
“It’s like ‘Me, why should I get out for you?’ And that’s going to work in Bernie Sanders’ favor,” he said.
This doesn’t even consider Michael Bloomberg, who entered the race on the premise he could be the last candidate standing against Sanders as other candidates ran out of gas. Ironically, even Bloomberg may end up contributing to the divide on the center-left that lifts Sanders.
The End of Klomentum
Klobuchar’s rise in the Democratic primary looks to be short-lived. She was on track to finish well outside the top four in Nevada, suggesting the momentum she gained after a surprising third-place finish in New Hampshire earlier this month was not sustainable.
The Minnesota senator spent most of 2019 campaigning in Iowa, hoping her Midwestern ties would propel her past rivals with more money and higher profiles. She finished a disappointing fifth, winning only one delegate.
Thanks to a widely praised debate performance before the New Hampshire primary, Klobuchar was able to win over a large share of late-deciding voters in the state. That in turn propelled a flood of fundraising.
But Klobuchar had a massive amount of ground to make up in Nevada, where she had barely campaigned until this month. On Saturday, she finished behind her moderate rivals and failed to prove she could make inroads with nonwhite voters, who will only play a more important role going forward into South Carolina and Super Tuesday on March 3.
Klobuchar claimed at a Saturday night rally in Minneapolis that her campaign had “exceeded expectations” in Nevada and said she was continuing on to South Carolina and Super Tuesday states. But it’s just going to get harder from here.
The Warren Bump That Wasn’t
Warren received a post-debate bounce.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
The Massachusetts senator performed noticeably better with Nevada Democrats who made their decision in the last few days, according to entrance polls, evidence that her well-reviewed debate performance had an effect on voters.
But she still fell well short of finishing near the top of Saturday’s caucuses. And it’s unclear how a candidate who also came in third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire can mount a comeback in a race where Sanders has emerged a strong frontrunner and her other rivals have shown no indication they are ready to drop out.
Warren does appear to have money to carry on her campaign, thanks to a post-debate fundraising surge. And she’s already announced plans to campaign in Super Tuesday states like Texas.
“We believe the Nevada debate will have more impact on the structure of the race than the Nevada result,” Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau tweeted Saturday night.
But she will need another strong debate in South Carolina next week and an unexpectedly high finish in the state’s primary, where she has consistently trailed in the polls, to get back on track.
Steyer the Spoiler
Tom Steyer was hoping to come in first or second in Nevada. He placed far from that, but his performance with black voters could be cause for concern for Biden heading into South Carolina.
Steyer was on pace to finish in the single digits, but he earned about 16% of the black vote, according to entrance polls, behind only Biden and Sanders. While black voters only made up 10 percent of the Nevada caucus electorate, they are expected to comprise 60 percent of the South Carolina primary electorate.
Biden has long counted on racking up big margins with black voters to lift him to victory in South Carolina, where he has a reservoir of goodwill from his days as Barack Obama’s vice president. But Steyer has spent millions of dollars of his own money to court black voters, and recent polls show him eating into Biden’s support with that community in the state. If Steyer peels off a similar slice of the black vote in South Carolina, it could harm Biden’s chances in a state he desperately needs for a comeback.
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Join NowThis story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Can anyone stop Bernie Sanders? 5 takeaways from the Nevada caucuses."
