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Sanders Seizes Lead in Democratic Race With Win in Nevada

(Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders broke away from his rivals in the Democratic presidential race Saturday with a decisive win in Nevada powered by Hispanic and black voters -- setting him up for wins in the more diverse Super Tuesday states that would make him a favorite for the nomination.

With 60% of precincts reporting, Sanders had 46% to Joe Biden’s 19.6% of the county delegates. Pete Buttigieg was in third with 15.3%, the threshold used to award delegates to the nominating Democratic National Convention.

The Vermont senator won more than half the Hispanic vote, according to entrance polls cited by CNN, and expanded his strength with black voters -- undercutting criticism that his support is mostly young, white and disaffected. That sets him up to do well in Texas and California, both of which are among the 14 contests on March 3 and come with large delegate prizes.

He also gained with Nevada Democratic voters who want a massive overhaul of the U.S. health insurance system. With 62% of caucus-goers saying they want a program akin to Sanders’ Medicare for All, he took 49% of their support.

Sanders’ lead was so large that the Associated Press called the race with just 4% of precincts reporting. The Nevada Democratic Party, the official vote-counter of the party-run presidential preference contest, still had reported only 484 out of 2,097 precincts seven hours after the caucuses began.

Blow to Moderates

The results dealt a serious blow to the hopes of moderate Democrats who want to stop Sanders. Biden’s second-place finish gives him a slight tailwind heading to an expected strong finish in South Carolina -- but does little to erase doubts over whether he is simply too old and out of step with the leftward lean of the party’s base to become its standard-bearer.

On Sunday, the Buttigieg campaign sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee challenging the results in some precincts, and alleging that the party incorrectly merged early votes with caucus day results. The campaign also said that in some precincts, voters were given incorrect information about the alignment process. Buttigieg is asking that the party release raw data and correct any errors before the results are finalized.

Amy Klobuchar, after a stronger-than-expected performance in New Hampshire, did little to distinguish herself in Nevada. And Elizabeth Warren couldn’t turn her strong debate performance last week into better results at the caucuses, where she was trailing in fourth place in early returns with 9.0%. She may emerge with no delegates from the state. Her campaign said she got a bounce compared with ballots cast before the debate.

Michael Bloomberg wasn’t on the ballot -- but still hopes to be the one to blunt Sanders’ momentum on Super Tuesday, despite a widely criticized debate performance last week. The candidates debate again Tuesday in Charleston, South Carolina.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

At stake in Nevada were 36 pledged delegates to the national convention of the 1,991 needed to secure the party’s nomination. The results could give Sanders a narrow delegate lead over Buttigieg, with just 2.5% of delegates awarded. More important than delegates, each win gives candidates momentum going into later contests.

Sanders had already left Nevada while the caucuses were still gathering and headed for Texas, where he stopped in the majority-Hispanic cities of El Paso and San Antonio and praised their diversity, a new message from Sanders.

New Dynamic

Nevada’s outcome seems to have changed the electoral dynamic for Sanders by broadening his coalition -- making it harder for establishment Democrats to stop him out of fear his liberal policies make him unelectable against President Donald Trump,

“In Nevada we have just put together a multi-generational, multiracial coalition which is not going to only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep this country,” he said to cheers in San Antonio.

Biden, the one-time front-runner, was in second place, which tracked with his promise to supporters that he would fare better in diverse states, like Nevada and South Carolina, than he did in the overwhelmingly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire

Biden is leading the RealClearPolitics average of polls in South Carolina, which holds its primary next Saturday and where the majority of Democratic primary voters is African-American. But Sanders’ momentum has recently pushed him into second place there.

Big Delegate Day

The candidates already are campaigning in the 14 states that vote on Super Tuesday, when 1,357 delegates are at stake, 415 from California alone. Buttigieg and Bloomberg already have issued “state of the race” memos warning that Sanders could earn an insurmountable cache of delegates on that day. Polls show he leads in California.

Sanders has consumed much of the progressive support that Warren enjoyed early in the race, but the centrist votes are still split among Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg and Klobuchar. That, too, has enabled Sanders’ rise.

Biden pointedly reminded his supporters he was a traditional Democrat, in a dig at Sanders, who is a self-described democratic socialist.

“I’m a Democrat for a simple reason. I ain’t a socialist, I ain’t a plutocrat. I’m a Democrat. And I’m proud of it,” he said. “I think it’s time we get moving. I think it’s time we unite the party first.”

Buttigieg called for party unity, but not behind Sanders, whose strict progressivism he said “leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans.”

“Before we rush to nominate Senator Sanders as our one shot to take on this president, let’s take a sober look at what’s at stake,” the former mayor said. He echoed other Democrats’ who warn that Sanders wouldn’t only lose the White House but also the party’s majority in the House.

‘Truly Deliver’

“I believe the only way to truly deliver any of the progressive changes we care about is to be a nominee who actually gives a damn about the effect you are having, from the top of the ticket, on those crucial, front-line House and Senate Democrats running to win, who we need to win, to make sure our agenda is more than just words on a page,” Buttigieg said.

Bloomberg has made a direct appeal for moderates to coalesce around one candidate -- preferably him. But his poor performance at last week’s debate undercut his claim to be the one to stop Sanders with his massive warchest, which has spent close to a half-billion dollars on advertising alone.

“The Nevada results reinforce the reality that this fragmented field is putting Bernie Sanders on pace to amass an insurmountable delegate lead,” Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement after the Nevada race was called. “If we choose a candidate who appeals to a small base -- like Senator Sanders - it will be a fatal blow.”

President Donald Trump’s campaign was already relishing the prospect of facing Sanders in the fall.

“There is no denying that big government socialism dominated again as Bernie Sanders remained the leader of the leftist pack,” said a statement from Brad Parscale, Trump campaign manager.

On Sunday, Trump congratulated Sanders on his “great win” in Nevada and predicted the Vermont senator would be the Democrat to face him in November.

Nevada’s results showed Sanders base was expanding.

Despite running afoul of the powerful Culinary Workers Union over his plan to eliminate their private health insurance plans, Sanders had the same support among union households as he did with non-union households: 34% each. That suggests rank-and-file union members are likely to make up their own minds in the primaries to come.

Sanders also took two-thirds of voters younger than 30 and nearly half of people aged between 30 and 44 years old, the entrance polls showed.

There were two late developments in the days before the caucuses: A feisty Democratic debate and a report that intelligence officials briefed the Sanders campaign on Russian efforts to help his candidacy.

The impact of those events was likely blunted by Nevada’s first caucus early voting. Almost 75,000 people — including 10,000 newly registered Democrats — voted beginning last weekend.

This year, Nevada allowed for early voting in which people could rank their top three candidates, with the option of ranking up to five. About 77,000 Nevadans filled out ballots early. The number of early voters was almost as many as the total who caucused in 2016, when 84,000 people came out support a candidate.

(Updates with Buttigieg comments in seventh paragraph)

--With assistance from Jennifer Epstein, Tyler Pager and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net;Emma Kinery in San Antonio, Texas at ekinery@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, ;Craig Gordon at cgordon39@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane, Ros Krasny

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