Clinton defeats Sanders in Nevada; black voter support appears decisive
(about 1 hour later)
LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton held off a powerful late challenge from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada’s Democratic caucus vote Saturday, securing a narrow victory that could help her renew a claim to the mantle of presumptive Democratic nominee.
LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton held off a powerful late challenge from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada’s Democratic caucus vote Saturday, securing a narrow victory that helps the former secretary of state regain momentum after a crushing defeat in New Hampshire.
With more two-thirds of precincts reporting, Clinton held a four-point lead over Sanders -- a margin more decisive than her razor-thin Iowa win but much closer than the Clinton campaign had anticipated as recently as a month ago, when it touted polls showing the former secretary of state with a 25-point lead.
Nevada was the first state to test support among minority voters, who have long been expected to be in Clinton’s camp. As it turned out, preliminary entrance polls showed Latinos favoring Sanders, despite having voted for Clinton 2-to-1when she ran in 2008. African American voters, meanwhile, appear to have overwhelmingly supported Clinton — a development that could bode extremely well for her given the run of Southern states with large black electorates voting in the coming weeks.
Addressing supporters at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Clinton delivered the full-throated victory speech that she was unable to give in Iowa two weeks ago, where the race was not officially settled until the next morning.
“Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other,” Clinton told supporters gathered at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom. Clinton congratulated Sanders on a close election, but she got in a few digs too.
“Some may have doubted us but we never doubted each other,” she said after taking the stage to “Hill-a-ry” chants. “This one is for you.”
“It can’t just be about what we’re going to give to you; it has to be about what we are going to build together,” she said in an unmistakable reference to Sanders’s large and expensive plans for government-funded health care, college and more.
Sanders prevailed in many rural areas and won Washoe County, where Reno, Nevada’s second-largest city, is located. But Clinton racked up a 10-point margin in Clark County, which is by far the state’s largest, home to Las Vegas and nearly three-quarters of its residents.
Clinton’s campaign cast some doubt on the strength of Sanders’s support among Hispanics, pointing to majority-Latino precincts that she won.
Nevada is the first state to gauge Clinton’s support among Hispanics, a growing demographic Democrats will need to win in November. The state, which is home to a well-organized workforce of hotel and culinary workers, is also a key test of labor power.
Sanders used his concession speech to denounce the “corrupt campaign finance system” and the nation’s vast inequality between the “top 1 percent” of the economy and everyone else.
While entrance polling showed Sanders gaining stronger-than-expected support among Latino caucus-goers, Clinton maintained an overwhelming advantage among African American voters. She will seek to expand on that minority support in Southern and Midwestern states that will vote in the coming weeks, starting with the South Carolina Democratic primary next Saturday.
“The wind is at our backs,” Sanders said. “We have the momentum.” He predicted several victories in upcoming state primary contests and, ultimately, “one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States.”
[Updates from Nevada and South Carolina]
Saturday’s results seemed to render that promise more difficult to achieve.
The Nevada Democratic caucus is one of two races Saturday that will measure the strength of anti-establishment fervor in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Sanders had steadily eroded Clinton’s double-digit lead in Nevada, the first state with a racially diverse population to cast primary votes this year. Slightly more than a quarter of the state’s population is Hispanic, and the state is also home to sizable African American and Native American populations.
Voting continued into the evening in South Carolina’s Republican primary, where Donald Trump is favored to win but Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida have showed signs of closing the gap this week.
A Sanders victory in Nevada would have suggested a reach far beyond his core base of white liberals — and rocked the premise that Clinton’s national lead was insurmountable. Instead, Clinton’s strong showing among African American voters in Nevada suggests that despite inroads among Hispanic voters, Sanders faces an even more difficult test in the next contest, in South Carolina next Saturday.
Entrance polls reported Saturday by CNN found that Nevada’s Democratic caucus-goers were far more liberal than eight years ago, which seemed to bode well for Sanders. They also reinforced the view that Clinton does better among nonwhite voters than among whites. However, the makeup of the electorate Saturday was no more diverse than in 2008, when 65 percent of caucus-goers were white and 15 percent apiece were African American and Hispanic.
With most precincts reporting, Clinton was winning with 52 percent of the vote overall to Sanders’s 48 percent. But according to preliminary entrance polls reported by CNN, she won among black Democrats by a whopping 76 percent to 22 percent. African Americans made up 13 percent of the electorate, according to the entrance poll, while 19 percent were Hispanic and 59 percent were white. Sanders held an eight-point edge among Hispanic voters, who accounted for roughly 1 in 5 caucus-goers, and the two candidates split white voters about evenly.
The survey of caucus-goers reported by CNN found new evidence of a massive generational gap between Clinton and Sanders supporters. Where Sanders is supported by roughly three-quarters of participants under 45, Clinton leads with about six in 10 support among those who are older. The entrance polling found a significant influx of first-time participants, who tended to favor Sanders.
“In the five NV precincts with the highest percentages of African American registrants, Clinton won all the delegates, 76-0,” her spokesman, Brian Fallon, said in a tweet shortly after the results were known.
Clinton still enjoys strong support from the Democratic establishment, and her goal in Nevada was to blunt the momentum Sanders acquired from a victory in New Hampshire and then move on next week to South Carolina, where she enjoys broad support from African Americans.
Clinton has enjoyed a large lead among South Carolina African Americans, who in 2008 made up more than half the Democratic primary electorate.
[South Carolina voting could reshape a wild GOP presidential race]
And on March 1, when more delegates will be awarded in Super Tuesday voting than at any other time in the political calendar, black voters make up significant parts of the Democratic electorate in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas and Virginia. Sanders has a better chance of winning the other Super Tuesday states — Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma and his home state of Vermont — which have relatively small black populations. He also plans to compete in Texas, which has a large Latino population, too.
The senator from Vermont has appealed to younger Hispanics to support his candidacy in an effort to counter claims that he cannot attract minority votes.
Sanders planned to campaign in South Carolina on Sunday, but he has scheduled events Monday in Massachusetts.
Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said Saturday’s result indicated “tremendous progress” for the Vermont senator, given how far behind he was Hillary Clinton in the polls just a few weeks ago.
“We’re going to target the states where we’re strongest and compete for delegates everywhere,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s campaign manager.
Weaver also argued that entrance polls showing Sanders leading among Latino voters amounted to a major development in the race, helping his prospects in upcoming states such as Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and California. “That was supposed to be a huge part of the Clinton firewall,” he said. “It’s a critical breakthrough in terms of the states that come next.”
Clinton flew directly to Texas for a campaign rally later Saturday and will be in South Carolina in the coming week.
He acknowledged that the campaign faces a tough test next week in the South Carolina primary, where Clinton has enjoyed a large lead in part on the strength of African American voters. But Weaver said Sanders has no plans to concede the first primary in the South to Clinton.
Clinton has now barely won two of the first three states to cast presidential selection votes, and she lost the other badly. Sanders’s growing momentum in recent weeks has exposed flaws in Clinton’s candidacy and threatened her carefully constructed strategy that presented her as the presumed front-runner and heir to President Obama’s legacy.
“We’re are certainly going to be down there to compete, but we’re going to have to appear in a host of other states as well,” he said, alluding to the 11 “Super Tuesday” states that have primaries or caucuses on March 1. “We’re going to target the states where we’re strongest and compete for delegates everywhere.”
The Nevada vote, however, gives some weight to the claim by Clinton allies that the wave of anti-establishment fervor carrying Sanders would slow in states with fewer white voters.
Sanders made a morning visit to the MGM Grand Casino Saturday, seeking to make sure the unionized workers there planned to participate in the caucuses later in the day.
Sanders, who represents a state that is 95 percent white, has never before in his four-decade political career had to court minority voters. His advisers said they were confident that his economic message would break through with younger and working-class voters — two constituencies he’s connected with in other states — regardless of race.
Scores of workers were waiting to greet Sanders and take selfies in advance of the Nevada caucuses. Among those already sold on Sanders was Laura Barrera-Perez, who said her job was cleaning the casino.
Clinton supporters gathered for her victory party in a ballroom at Caesars Palace and erupted in cheers and chants of “Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!” as results flashed on the televisions.
“He proposes good stuff,” she said of Sanders. “I saw his face, and he’s very honest.”
“I told ya!” said Michael Airington, 57, a Clinton supporter. “She needed this. Now she’s going to sweep South Carolina!”
Ambrocio Leyva, a buffet-line server, said he was still struggling with choice but was inclined to go with Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Leyva, 46, who came to the United States from Mexico 25 years ago, said many of his co-workers had initially been for Clinton but some were rethinking their choice.
Airington attributed the closeness of the vote to younger Democrats who were too young to know much about Clinton’s work during her husband’s presidency in the 1990s.
Leyva said he had waited to make a final choice until the end because “you can always hear something new” from the candidates. “I’m making that decision now,” he said.
“She needs to recalibrate with the millennials and let them know she was for everything Bernie is for before Bernie was,” Airington said.
[In Nevada, Clinton’s campaign manager faces his biggest test]
Indeed, voters under 30 preferred Sanders 82 percent to 14 percent, and those under 45 picked Sanders 62 percent to 35 percent, according to the CNN exit poll data.
This weekend is one of the few times when the Democratic and Republican calendars diverge. Republicans will hold caucuses in Nevada on Tuesday, and Democrats will have their primary in South Carolina next Saturday.
Weaver said Sanders’s now-proven ability to court Latinos should help his prospects going forward in states including Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and California. He also said that the loss in Nevada will not affect Sanders’s plans to remain in the race through the Democratic convention.
Nevada’s caucuses mark the first real chance for non-white voters to weigh in on the Democratic race. The next will come in South Carolina, and in the Southern-heavy line-up of states that vote on March 1. Sanders’s campaign has already targeted Colorado, a caucus state with a large Latino population, as one of its best Super Tuesday hopes.
Clinton’s first campaign trip to Nevada, weeks after she entered the race in April, was intended as an outreach primarily to Hispanics and chiefly around the issue of immigration. She met with young people protected from deportation by President Obama’s executive actions, and she pledged to seek a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
On Saturday morning, Clinton stopped by the cafeteria at the Harrah’s casino on the Las Vegas Strip to greet caucus-goers, minutes after Sanders had worked the same room.
Nevada led the nation in home foreclosures and was hard hit by bankruptcies in the Great Recession. The senator from Vermont’s heavy focus on an economy “rigged” to benefit the wealthy and powerful interests had resonated in a state where many residents blamed Wall Street and large mortgage companies for their reversals.
The heavily Latino crowd cheered “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!” when Clinton entered. “First Lady in the house!” a man yelled.
In the closing days, his campaign aired a 30-second ad with foreclosure signs and aerial shots of decimated neighborhoods narrated by Erin Bilbray, the daughter of a former congressman, who relayed how her neighbors were hurt by the crisis.
Across town, at a Henderson middle school, long lines greeted caucus-goers registering to participate in the day’s events. The Nevada Democratic Party said that over 31,000 people had pre-registered online, but at this location, a vast majority of participants hadn’t.
“I’ve watched as the house across the street has sat empty for over six years,” says Bilbray, a Democratic National Committee member and former Clinton supporter. “I’ve watched good friends have their homes foreclosed on. People are still really suffering, and they’re looking for somebody who is going to create bold change.”
Nevada’s most prominent Democratic politician, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid arrived there to caucus with his wife, Landra Gould. Reid has pledged to remain neutral in the presidential race until after Nevada voters have spoken.
Sanders also repeatedly pointed to Clinton’s ties to big financial institutions, as he did again Saturday by noting that a super PAC supporting Clinton receives what he called Wall Street donations.
“It’s important that we have this furor we have in Nevada,” said Reid, who was instrumental in making his state one of the early presidential contests. “It didn’t exist 10 years ago; it exists now. I’m glad we focus on places other than New Hampshire and Iowa to find a presidential candidate for us.”
But in the days leading up to the caucus vote, immigration was the main point of argument between the two campaigns.
Sanders’s highest-profile Latino endorsers took one last chance to attack Hillary Clinton’s immigration record, telling reporters on a conference call that her “hypocrisy” was breaking down her “whole mythology of a firewall of color.”
Clinton and her surrogates argued that Sanders was a latecomer to championing the rights of illegal immigrants. Clinton allies have made the same claim about Sanders’s efforts to win over African Americans elsewhere.
“There was a comfort zone that the Clinton campaign and their operatives were working in, that there would be no real response from the Latino community,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the first member of Congress to endorse Sanders.
“He is a very strong candidate. He had a lot of committed supporters,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Saturday. “He is a real force, and he will continue to be a strong candidate, so we are grateful for this win, but we know we have 47 more states.”
Grijalva has campaigned extensively through Nevada, linking Clinton to a 1996 Republican-passed immigration bill signed by her husband, President Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has battered Sanders over his vote against a 2007 immigration bill — a vote, Sanders backers have noted, that put him on the same side as Barack Obama.
About 80,000 people showed up for the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, a significant drop-off compared with 2008, the last time there was a competitive Democratic race, according to officials at the Nevada Democratic Party.
For Clinton, Nevada was supposed to be where months of painstaking grass-roots organizing, plus goodwill in minority communities, would put a stop to Sanders’s momentum after the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, far less diverse states.
Instead, in an effort to help stanch the bleeding of minority votes, especially from Latinos, Clinton’s surrogates have turned sharply to Sanders’s record on immigration issues, which they said has been checkered by votes in favor of anti-immigration bills and a vote against comprehensive immigration reform in 2007.
Clinton’s campaign has been playing down the importance of the Nevada vote in calls and other discussions with donors and key political supporters. The caucus format plays to Sanders’s grass-roots strengths, and the likely electorate is far less diverse than the state population as a whole, Clinton aides have told donors since her 22-point defeat in New Hampshire.
Her focus, instead, is on South Carolina, where Democrats will hold their primary next Saturday.
Clinton received a boost on Friday when the influential Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) offered his support. “I believe that the future of the Democratic Party and the United States of America will be best served with the experience and know-how of Hillary Clinton as our 45th president,” Clyburn said.
DeBonis reported from Washington. Anne Gearan in Washington and Abby Phillip in Las Vegas; contributed to this report.
