Suzanne Gamboa and Anita Hassan
6m ago / 10:55 PM UTC
Sanders appears the favorite in a Latino-heavy caucus site
Bernie Sanders’ popularity in parts of the Latino community was clear at a caucus site in east Las Vegas, showing how much his campaign has penetrated into the community.
Sanders came out on top of each of four precincts that met in the Desert Pines High School’s cafeteria and often was 10 points or more ahead of the second place candidate, who was Joe Biden in three precincts and Tom Steyer in a fourth.
Although Sanders registers high support with young Latinos, the in-person caucusgoers were a mix of younger and middle-aged people.
Early votes appeared to help Sanders put distance between himself and other candidates. In one of the precincts, 18 people showed up to caucus, but 63 people voted early, according to initial calculations. In the precinct’s unofficial results, Sanders got 16 people in the room and 40 early voters, while Biden got one vote in the room and 18 early voters. One caucusgoer who initially was for Pete Buttigieg chose to be uncommitted after Buttigieg failed to get enough votes to be viable.
Sabryna Gomez, 18, who attended her first caucus, initially caucused for Tom Steyer. She said she had seen him on the news and he encouraged her to come out for him. But Steyer was not viable in her precinct, so she switched her vote to Sanders.
Javier Galvez, 35, was the only in-person caucusgoer to choose Biden and was not joined by anyone on the second round. But early votes kept Biden in the race.
“I’m glad I was able to help push him over the top to be a viable candidate,” Galvez said.
In another precinct, Alejandra Romero, 28, a student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus, said she was thrilled with the support for Sanders in her precinct.
“I had a lot of faith in our community. I went with my heart first. In our community, we are clear on the principles and values wanted from a candidate,” she said. Sanders’ values “are very clear, and right now the stakes are too high.”
More than 80 people participated in the caucus at Rancho High School near downtown Las Vegas, where Sanders also appeared to be doing well.
“I feel great,” said Mario Vivales, who cast his vote for the Vermont senator and said he believes the caucus process went smoothly. “I saw Bernie jumping ahead of everyone.”
Most of the volunteers running the caucus there were high school students between 15 to 18 years old.
“This is the next generation,” said Yesenia Moya, 30, who was the temporary precinct chair. “I’m proud to be a part of this today.”
NBC News Entrance Poll Desk
24m ago / 10:37 PM UTC
NBC News Entrance Poll: Biden leads among black voters in Nevada; Sanders in second
Joe Biden leads among black participants in Saturday’s Nevada Democratic caucuses, with Bernie Sanders in second place, results from the NBC News Entrance Poll show. The Vermont senator sits solidly in first place among the state’s Latino voters.
Entrance poll results show Biden with 36 percent of the black vote at Nevada’s caucuses and Sanders with 27 percent. In third place is billionaire Tom Steyer, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Black voters made up about 1 in 10 participants at the Nevada caucuses.
Sanders is clearly leading his rivals among Nevada’s Latino Democrats, who made up about 1 in 5 caucusgoers. He’s winning about half of the Latino vote, leaving Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Steyer and Warren far behind.
Sanders has built a slimmer lead among Nevada’s white Democratic caucusgoers (65 percent of Saturday’s electorate), receiving nearly 3 in 10 of their votes. That’s 9 points ahead of Buttigieg, his closest rival in this group.
Caucus workers tally and report votes through an iPad
Phil McCausland
36m ago / 10:25 PM UTC
Sanders stumps in Texas while reaping support in Nevada
Bernie Sanders didn’t take time to gloat in Nevada on Saturday despite boasting what appears to be a healthy early lead in initial preference results, largely because of support from young, liberal voters.
Instead, the Vermont senator stumped in Texas, looking toward the Super Tuesday contest and the 228 delegates to win there. His Democratic opponents, meanwhile, tried to boost their support at numerous caucus locations across the Silver State.
Hundreds of people came to see Sanders in El Paso, where the presidential nominee directed most of his political fire at President Donald Trump and the wealthy rather than the Democrats he’s currently running against. At the top, Sanders emphasized that his campaign was about “us, not me.”
We’re running against billionaires and some candidates funded by billionaires, but Trump fears our campaign the most because we have what they don’t. We have an unprecedented movement. Live from El Paso: https://t.co/mApZ7TCCgb
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 22, 2020
“When I look out at this audience, I have absolute confidence that we can create a government that is based on compassion, it’s based on love, it’s based on truth, not what we have now of greed, corruption and lies,” Sanders said, adding that President Donald Trump “is a pathological liar, who is running a corrupt administration, who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot.”
Sanders then hit on some of his favored policy topics, including raising the minimum wage, defending women’s rights, addressing climate change, supporting unions, overhauling the criminal justice system, providing universal childcare, canceling student debt and pushing for Medicare for All.
“Let’s transform this country!” Sanders yelled at the end of the speech to cheers from his supporters.
Jonathan Allen
54m ago / 10:07 PM UTC
ANALYSIS: Sanders shows union leaders limits of their power
The most powerful union in Nevada, the culinary workers, came out hard against Sanders with a thinly veiled attack on his Medicare for All health insurance proposal. But Sanders is expected to do well here, as he did in Iowa, despite significant pushback from labor leadership. Of course, not all unions oppose Sanders’ plans — or have the same degree of opposition — but some of the biggest unions have gone as far as they feel they can in trying to turn M4A into a loser for him.
That’s bad news for the suits who make decisions about what unions will do in the political realm. If Sanders can withstand such attacks, it suggests he’s closer to the workers than their own union leaders. And that will increasingly force labor leaders to decide whether they want to risk further exposing rifts between themselves and their members on one of the most important issues for those members.
Rather than counter-punching against unions that share much of his agenda on other matters, Sanders has chosen to show his strength without further alienating the brass. If he wins the Democratic nomination, he’ll need the force of major labor unions to help him against Trump, and the decision to play this fight more subtly is a sign of political sophistication on his part.
Because they share a lot of constituents, there’s not much upside to either labor leaders or Sanders in a protracted or ugly war. If his performances in Nevada and Iowa get his detractors in the labor movement to back off — and there are signs that might happen — he’ll be in an even stronger position going forward.
Buttigieg backers affirm their support with a show of hands
Teens say it’s been ‘pretty chill’ to work on caucuses
The under 18 year-old volunteers at Rancho HS described the experience of leading their precinct as “pretty chill”
— Alicia Menendez (@AliciaMenendez) February 22, 2020
NBC News Entrance Poll Desk
1h ago / 10:01 PM UTC
NBC News Entrance Poll: Young, first-time voters make up large share of Nevada’s Latino Democrats
Latino voters account for 1 in 5 participants in Saturday’s Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses. They are substantially younger and less likely to hold a college degree than white Nevada Democrats — and are more likely to be attending a Democratic caucus for the first time, early results from the NBC News Entrance Poll show.
More than half of Latino Democratic caucusgoers are under age 45, compared to just a third of white caucusgoers. Nearly two-thirds of Nevada’s Latino voters are participating in a Democratic caucus for the first time; that’s true for less than half of white voters.
Among Latinos at Saturday’s Democratic caucuses, 78 percent support replacing private health insurance with a single government-run plan, a substantially higher share than among white voters (60 percent).
Entrance poll results indicate that Bernie Sanders enjoys a wide lead among Nevada’s Latino caucusgoers.
‘Just get Mike Bloomberg in there’: Clint Eastwood distances himself from Trump
Longtime Republican Clint Eastwood is pulling support from Donald Trump in the 2020 election. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the actor-director signaled that he thinks a different candidate would be the better choice.
“The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there,” he said.
After endorsing Mitt Romney and famously delivering a speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention to an empty chair that represented Barack Obama, Eastwood never officially backed Trump. In a 2016 interview, he expressed displeasure with Trump and Hillary Clinton, saying there’s “much funny business on both sides of the aisle.”
Biden volunteer puts the sell on undecided voter
Jonathan Allen
1h ago / 9:54 PM UTC
ANALYSIS: Strong Latino support for Sanders portends even tougher road ahead for rivals
Early exit polls show Sanders winning 51 percent, a slight majority, of Latino voters in the Nevada caucuses. In a two-person race, that lead wouldn’t be such a big deal. In the scramble that is the Democratic nomination contest, it’s a huge figure with magnified implications for the Super Tuesday delegate chase coming up in about 10 days.
Here’s why: Fourteen of the 53 House districts in California are Hispanic-majority, and more than half of them have Latino populations exceeding 35 percent. If California Latinos and Latinas vote like their counterparts in Nevada, Sanders is in great shape to dominate many of those districts and net a large number of delegates out of them collectively.
A similar dynamic is at play in Texas, where district-level delegates are decided by state Senate seats rather than congressional seats. In the Lone Star state, 7 of the state’s 31 districts are Hispanic-majority, and many others have significant Latino influence.
Sanders is holding a rally in Texas Saturday afternoon.
