What Hillary Clinton's Nevada Victory Means for Bernie Sanders
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LAS VEGAS — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada Democratic caucuses in a tight race, according to multiple media reports. She's expected to win by about four to six points by the time all of the votes are counted.
This is a disappointing night for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has now lost two of the first three contested states. And he’s likely to lose next week in South Carolina, where he’s down by a wide margin of 24 points, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll average.
What does this mean for Sanders now?
From there, Sanders will need to mount a comeback on Super Tuesday on March 1. Unfortunately for him, the 11 states voting that day tend to favor Clinton. They are mostly southern states, such as Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee, as well as states where suburban Democrats are important, such as Colorado and Virginia. Those voters tend to favor Clinton.
More concerning for Sanders is that early projections indicate that Black voters supported Clinton in Nevada. Questions about Sanders' ability to win over Black voters have circled his campaign thus far, and will become imperative as the primaries hit those more diverse southern states.
Nevada voters started lining up to cast their vote at precincts inside casinos, high schools, and community centers across the state at about 11 a.m. The Associated Press first reported the victory at about 2:15 p.m.
Clinton thanked her supporters on Twitter:
According to entrance polling conducted by NBC, a large majority of Nevada voters entered the caucuses with the minds already made up:
Entrance polls from CBS indicated that economic issues were the most important issue for Nevada voters:
