Yes, we’re folding. With Las Vegas in the spotlight this weekend, of course we had to conclude these Nevada updates with a card-playing pun.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has long been declared the winner of the Democratic caucuses, though still only 60% of precincts have reported results, as of this writing.
Next up: South Carolina’s primary.
Seven Democrats are set to debate on Tuesday night in the Palmetto State, including billionaire Tom Steyer, who just qualified today after missing the last debate.
Then on Friday, President Trump holds a rally in South Carolina — the latest of his visits to states right before a Democratic nominating contest is held there.
And Saturday, it’s the Democratic primary, with 54 delegates at stake.
So stick with us this week for all the news out of South Carolina!
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The Buttigieig campaign says it has identified "irregularities" with the results from yesterday’s caucuses and is calling on the Nevada Democratic Party to release precinct-level data and correct any outstanding issues.
In a letter to state party Chair William McCurdy II last night, Michael Gaffney, the Buttigieg campaign’s director of national ballot access and delegates, says the “process of integrating early votes into the results of the in-person precinct caucuses was plagued with errors and inconsistencies."
“We received more than 200 incident reports [yesterday] from precincts around the state, including a few dozen related to how early vote factored into the in-person results,” Gaffney writes.
“In numerous locations, the early vote totals were allocated to the wrong candidate,” according to Gaffney.
For the first time, Nevada held four days of early caucusing. In the letter, Gaffney asks state party officials to release early vote and in-person vote totals by precinct, and to correct any outstanding errors from the second alignment — after voters re-sorted in the caucus process — identified by any campaign or the party itself while performing quality control.
In a statement, Molly Forgey, a spokesperson for the Nevada Democratic Party, said: “We laid out our early vote and Caucus Day processes step by step and we communicated these processes to all campaigns. We are continuing to verify and to report results. We never indicated we would release a separate breakdown of early vote and in-person attendees by precinct and will not change our reporting process now. As laid out in our recount guidance, there is a formal method for requesting a challenge of results.”
With 60% of precincts reporting, Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., is in third place, with 15.3% of the vote. Former Vice President Joe Biden is in second, with 19.6%. Buttigieg’s campaign says its data shows a closer race for second.
“Given how close the race is between second and third place,” Gaffney writes, “we ask that you take these steps before releasing any final data.”
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As he was leaving the White House this morning, President Trump congratulated Sen. Bernie Sanders on "a great win" in the Nevada Democratic caucuses.
“Bernie is looking more and more like he’ll be the nominee unless they cheat him out of it,” the president said.
Trump was on his way to India for a two-day visit. He’ll meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, take part in trade talks, and attend a large stadium rally.
Trump said he was not briefed on reports that Russia had sought to interfere in the Democratic primary to help the Sanders campaign.
Trump accused House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., of leaking the information. “They ought to investigate that,” Trump said.
A committee official said Trump’s accusation was “categorically false” and accused the president of trying to divert attention away from his decision to fire Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, after a briefing to Congress on election security.
Schiff himself tweeted, “Nice deflection, Mr. President. But your false claims fool no one.”
This story has been updated with comments from Schiff and a committee official.
↑ Back to topMaybe you were spending your Saturday away from the internet and the radio. To catch you up on the Nevada caucuses:
Sen. Bernie Sanders cited his Nevada victory as proof that his campaign is bringing together a coalition of voters representing a wide range of demographics.
“We have just put together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition,” Sanders told supporters in San Antonio on Saturday. “No campaign has a grassroots movement like we do, which is another reason why we’re going to win this election.”
Sanders predicted he will win the primary in Texas on March 3 and go on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency. Sanders presented his platform as a direct contrast to President Trump.
“The American people are sick and tired of a government which is based on greed, corruption and lies,” Sanders said. “They want administration that is based on the principles of justice. Economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice.”
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Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg warned Democrats against nominating Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as their candidate to take on President Trump in the November presidential election after Sanders won the Nevada caucuses.
“I congratulate Sen. Sanders on a strong showing today, knowing that we celebrate many of the same ideals. But before we rush to nominate Sen. Sanders in our one shot to take on this president, let us take a sober look at what is at stake for our party, for our values and for those with the most to lose,” Buttigieg told supporters.
“There is so much on the line. And one thing we know for sure is that we absolutely must defeat Donald Trump and everything that he represents in November,” he said.
Buttigieg said that Sanders “believes in an inflexible ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans” and that Democrats can choose between “either ideological purity or inclusive victory.”
He also pointed out that his campaign is the only one to have beaten Sanders in any part of the country, a reference to the too-close-to-call results in Iowa, where Sanders and Buttigieg remain locked in a tight race.
“This is our shot — our only shot — to beat Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said. “So I’m asking Americans to make sure we make the right choice.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the projected winner of the Nevada caucuses, according to The Associated Press.
Sanders took an early lead in Nevada after winning the contest in New Hampshire last week. Sanders and former South Bend Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg nearly tied in Iowa where a chaotic vote-counting process has prevented The Associated Press from making a final determination.
This post has been updated.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that his campaign is positioned for a comeback, after lackluster performance in the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Look, I know we don’t have the final results yet, but I feel really good," Biden told supporters in Las Vegas. "You put me in a position — the press is ready to declare people dead quickly, but we’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re going to win."
Biden’s campaign manager, Greg Schultz, tweeted Saturday that the campaign believes Biden will place second in Nevada based on its internal data and noted that according to entrance polls, Biden won the black vote, support from voters over the age of 65 and voters who oppose “Medicare for All.”
"I think we’re going to go, we’re going to win in South Carolina and then Super Tuesday, and we are on our way," Biden said.
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As results from Nevada’s caucuses rolled in, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told supporters gathered in Minneapolis that, once again, her campaign had outperformed expectations.
"As usual, I think we have exceeded expectations,” she said. "A lot of people didn’t even think I’d still be standing at this point.”
At the time, with just 3% of precincts reporting, Klobuchar was in sixth place.
During her remarks, she looked ahead to South Carolina — the next contest — and the glut of states that vote on Super Tuesday (March 3), including Minnesota. She noted that she and her husband, John Bessler, had voted early Saturday and urged voters across the state to do the same.
Klobuchar said that she has the "toughness to beat Donald Trump" and that because of her supporters, "we have proved the naysayers wrong every single time."
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The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, told NPR that she felt optimistic about Bernie Sanders’ performance Saturday in Nevada, saying she believes it bodes well for his campaign.
“There will no longer be that dialogue or that narrative that, ‘Nobody likes Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders is too radical, he’s not electable,’ ” Carmen Yulín Cruz, a national co-chair of the Sanders campaign, said in an interview.
“He has [the] most popular vote in Iowa. He won New Hampshire. And it certainly looks like he’s going to have a great night,” Cruz said.
Cruz publicly sparred with President Trump after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. She said she backs Sanders because of his ability to fight for American minority groups.
“It is an understanding that minority groups and Latino groups are not an asterisk on the conversation when it comes to Bernie Sanders,” Cruz said. “They are not going to be on the back burner just to be used as pawns in a chess game that is politically motivated.”
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 chose not endorse a Democratic candidate ahead of Saturday’s caucuses despite its significant political influence in Nevada, saying it wanted its members to make their own decisions on the issues.
“We’re not endorsing anybody. We are endorsing our goals,” the union’s secretary-treasurer, Geoconda Argüello-Kline, told NPR. “We have a lot of goals — one of our goals was having immigration reform for 11 million people and looking for a candidate who is going to fight for that.”
The Culinary Union sparred with the Sanders campaign last week after the union sent out flyers, emails and texts opposing “Medicare for All.” Argüello-Kline issued a statement saying the Sanders supporters “viciously attacked” union members.
Culinary Union 226 has 60,000 members in Reno and Las Vegas alone. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign had actively courted the union. Biden had previously secured a crucial labor endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has 300,000 members.
Despite the Culinary Union declining to endorse, Biden thanked the group Saturday, claiming he had their support. “By the way, I heard that we probably did well with culinary workers, “ he said.
But as NPR’s Asma Khalid reported, Sanders was the overwhelming favorite at least at the Bellagio caucus site in Las Vegas, which many Culinary Union members attended.
This post has been updated.
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A little bit of desert rain can’t keep the voters away in Las Vegas. Caucus sites are forging ahead despite the downpour, according to Clark County Democratic Party Chair Donna West.
“People don’t come out a lot of the time when it rains here because our roads get very slick,” West told NPR. “They didn’t stay home today, and they certainly turned out with enthusiasm. Some were waiting at some locations for hours to vote.”
West said she was personally working the voter registration tables recently in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. The feedback on the process was “phenomenally positive,” she said. “[They] had a good time, which is what we want people to do when they come caucus."
West also noticed a large number of voters who were either registering for the first time or changing parties to vote as Democrats.
“We had five Republicans switching parties and more than a dozen independents,” she said. “They found a candidate that spoke to them.”
The Nevada Democratic Party said it has opened up two new phone lines to try to clear a results backlog, as leaders at a number of precincts are trying to call in their data at the same time.
Before Saturday’s caucuses, the party had not given an estimate of what time results would be reported, other than to say they would be in by the end of the day.
A state party spokesperson told NPR that the party is prioritizing accuracy over anything else.
Because of that, the party needs to compare the three sets of data that precinct chairs are reporting over the phone with the results the party is also getting from iPads used by precinct chairs for caucusing.
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Elizabeth Warren got a lot of attention for her debate performance Wednesday, and it appears to have resonated with a good chunk of Nevada Democrats. But it may have been too little, too late for the Massachusetts senator.
Entrance polls show she did about as well as Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg with Nevada Democrats who decided in the last few days. Of that group, Sanders won 24%, Buttigieg 21%, and Warren 20%.
But she did worse with those who decided earlier. The problem for Warren is some 75,000 people voted early. Even if turnout hits the record of nearly 120,000 from 2008, that means almost two-thirds of voters would have voted early. She has to hope for a very high turnout; still,, the entrance polls don’t show a huge surge for her.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden is pledging to halt all deportations in his first 100 days in office if he is elected president.
"Vice President Biden is absolutely committed to a 100 day moratorium on any deportations of people already in the United States," the Biden campaign and the Latino Victory Fund said in a joint statement on Saturday afternoon.
The news, first reported by BuzzFeed News, was confirmed by NPR’s Asma Khalid.
"The campaign and Latino Victory Fund stand fully together in this and in the mission to support immigrant communities and center all the issues important to Latinos at the heart of this movement as we work to send Donald Trump and his unmitigated assault on our national values packing,” the joint statement adds.
The stance is a shift for Biden, who has faced criticism on the trail for the Obama administration’s deportation policy while he was vice president.
The announcement comes the day that Nevada Democrats hold their caucuses to select their nominee. The contest there is the first one to take place in a state with a significant Hispanic population — Iowa and New Hampshire’s electorate was overwhelmingly white. California and Texas hold primaries on Super Tuesday on March 3, and both have large Latino voting blocks.
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Early returns show Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with a lead in Nevada, but former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is doing well in some rural parts of the state.
Layla Walz, mayor of the small northeast Nevada town of Wells, said voters in her region are looking for a candidate who can advocate for farmers.
"That was one of the biggest factors, I think, in selecting Buttigieg, because we are heavy agriculture,” Walz told NPR. “Somebody who appeals to our needs and listens to our needs … that is superimportant for me and for my region.”
“I think that he’s electable," she said.
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More than 6 in 10 Nevada Democratic voters say they are in favor of replacing private health insurance with a government plan, according to entrance polls. When asked how they feel about replacing all private health insurance with a single government plan for everyone, 62% said they supported it, while 35% were opposed.
Nothing has divided this Democratic presidential primary field quite like health care. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have argued in favor of “Medicare for All.” The more moderate candidates have argued against going that far but want a government option.
That progressive-moderate split is reflected in the preferences of Nevada Democrats.
Of those who support replacing private health insurance with a government plan, it was backers of Sanders at 49% and backers of Warren 15%.
Of those who oppose it, it was backers of former Vice President Joe Biden at 27%, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg 24% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar 19%.
The majority support for Medicare for All among Nevada Democrats is reflective of party members nationally. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll from December found 64% of Democrats were in favor of replacing private health insurance with a government plan. But it is not popular with Americans overall. Just 42% in that same poll overall were in favor of it, with only 37% of independents and 17% of Republicans supporting it.
↑ Back to topIn what could preview a lower-than-expected day-of turnout for Democrats across Nevada, the site leader and caucus leaders at a southwestern Las Vegas caucus site said fewer people showed up than they were expecting.
In Precinct 6658 at Sierra Vista High School, fewer than 30 people were registered to participate; precinct chair Syd Gordon said he was told to expect up to 125.
Still, the total turnout in the state looks strong, buoyed by the nearly 75,000 people who voted early.
At Gordon’s precinct, 106 early votes were cast and integrated into the caucus process.
Clint Eastwood, the legendary actor and director who has backed Republicans in the past, says he is supporting former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg this time around.
“The best thing we could do is just get Mike Bloomberg in there,” Eastwood, 89, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Eastwood, who served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., in the 1980s, describes himself as a libertarian. He told the Journal he met Donald Trump before he was elected and once played golf with him.
But Eastwood criticized the president’s rhetoric, saying that he backs “certain things that Trump’s done” but wishes the president would act “in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling people names. I would personally like for him to not bring himself to that level.”
Eastwood made a memorable political appearance at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., where he endorsed the GOP nominee, Mitt Romney. But his speech, in which he talked to an empty chair, puzzled the audience and surprised convention organizers with his unscripted routine.
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Democrats are looking to Nevada to provide a glimpse of how nonwhite voters are feeling and whom they are supporting. Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada has a diverse population that is more reflective of the Democratic Party as a whole.
Clarissa Martínez-de-Castro, the deputy vice president of advocacy and legislative affairs for the Latino advocacy group UnidosUS, says nonwhite voters are active and voting this year and are looking for candidates who speak to their needs.
“They want to see a candidate who values diversity and can bring people together,” Martínez-de-Castro told NPR. “A candidate who has realistic and achievable ideas and policies."
Martínez-de-Castro says time is running out for candidates to reach those voters.
“They are turning out, they’re paying attention, but you have to be talking to them now,” she said. “You can’t come last-minute, a month before the final election and say, ‘Oh, I want your vote and I want to talk to you.’ You’ve got to be engaged in those communities now."
Caucusgoers at Coronado High School in Henderson got a surprise visitor: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren stopped by with Dunkin’ Donuts in tow and took selfies with the crowd.
Multiple people told her how proud they were of her debate performance earlier this week. “I have a bumper sticker my husband got for me 10 years ago that says, ‘I’m in the Warren wing of the Democratic Party,’ ” said Sally Dandridge, a longtime fan. “I just like that she has well-thought-out, intellectual ideas about how she can attack problems.”
Dandridge said she has admired Warren for her persistence through the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. “She never gives up,” Dandridge said. “In the face of bullying by other male senators, she stood her ground and she continues to stand her ground. And I love that.”
But many other voters were undecided as they gathered at Precinct 1391. Warren supporters groaned loudly when they learned they were one person short of moving on to the next stage.
Those groans turned to cheers when Las Vegas writer Nadia Gilkes switched to caucus for Warren in the first round of the so-called alignment to select a nominee for the group. She had started the caucus as one of two Tom Steyer supporters in the room. But after talking to Warren supporters, Gilkes decided to make the change.
“Climate is very big to me, I really like Tom Steyer’s (plan) … but Elizabeth also has a great plan,” Gilkes said. “It’s not as aggressive as I would like to see, but it’s the second-best out there.”
The end result: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders got seven delegates, former Vice President Joe Biden took five, and Warren landed four.
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As Nevada Democrats caucused Saturday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders looked ahead to Texas, which is among the more than a dozen states holding its primary on Super Tuesday.
He spoke to supporters at a rally in El Paso, Texas, and made no mention of the contest in Nevada, where early results and entrance polls show he is poised for a strong finish. Sanders commented on the politics in Texas, where President Trump won the state overwhelmingly in the 2016 general election.
“I believe, in this state, if working people, if young people, if the minority communities come out in large numbers, we can turn this state around,” Sanders said. “If we win here in Texas, Trump is finished.”
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Caucusgoers can’t decide? In the event of a tie at a precinct, the Nevada Democratic Party has rules in place to determine a winner.
Iowans may flip a coin, but Nevadans pick a card.
Here’s how it works:
A representative from each of the the two tied groups takes a card from a deck that has been specifically given to each precinct location.
According to the Nevada Democrats, the precinct chair or site leader has to shuffle the deck of cards “at least seven times” before allowing each representative to pick a card.
The representative who picks the higher card is declared the winner. (Note: Aces are high, and if representatives pick the same number, it is determined by suites with spades being the highest followed by hearts, diamonds, and clubs.)
There will also be a hotline for caucus leaders to call in the event of questions.
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Billionaire businessman Tom Steyer has held the most events in Nevada of the eight Democrats remaining in the race to be their party’s presidential candidate.
Steyer did not have enough support to qualify for Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas, but he held a total of 56 events in Nevada. He also leads in ad spending in the state, dropping more than $16 million.
In total, the eight candidates held 231 events in Nevada. That’s significantly fewer than ahead of the first two contests in Iowa (1,137 events) and New Hampshire (853 events) — though there were more candidates in those two races.
Former Vice President Joe Biden held fewer than half the number of events in the state than Steyer did. In fact, when it came to events, Biden lagged all but two of the remaining competitors in the Democratic race. That’s significant because Biden has a lot on the line in the Nevada race after a weak performance in Iowa and New Hampshire.
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Chanting “Bernie,” supporters for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is showing strength in early results, were out in force at the Bellagio Las Vegas caucus site. There was more support for Sanders in this crowd, which included many members of the Culinary Workers Union, than for any other candidate. But after Sen. Elizabeth Warren wasn’t viable here, her supporters mostly went over to former Vice President Joe Biden rather than Sanders:
All signs are pointing to a big day for Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses.
According to the entrance polls, which are often paid for by big media organizations like CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS, Sanders leads with men, women, Hispanics, young voters and people who identify as very liberal.
He also leads with voters 45 to 64 and people with and without college degrees, and he did well with moderates and black voters.
The entrance poll data will change at the margins with successive data from different caucus sites and as the entrance polls are weighted to actual results. The following breakdown is as of 4:50 p.m. ET:
Gender:
Race:
Age:
Ideology:
Education:
About 20 people gathered at this Las Vegas high school, including Ashlie, who was undecided with just two minutes to go and who remained uncommitted through the first round. After supporter speeches and realignment, the caucus was over in about 40 minutes and caucusgoers said it ran smoothly. Follow along here:
Nevadans officially started caucusing at noon PT/3 p.m. ET!
Despite new changes centering on early voting and the technology being used to calculate and send results, the actual process itself hasn’t changed much from past years.
And remember: Saturday’s caucuses are only for the Democratic presidential candidates. The Nevada Republicans are not holding a nominating contest.
Here’s how it should work:
There are 36 delegates at stake on caucus day (with an additional 12 automatic delegates, previously known as “superdelegates,” who skip the caucus process and go right to the Democratic National Convention in July).
There are 252 locations with several locations hosting multiple precincts throughout their space, bringing the total number of precincts holding caucuses to more than 2,000.
Like Iowa, Nevada has two rounds of caucusing and a 15% threshold
After the first round (or first alignment), if a candidate gets more than 15% of total caucusgoers in the room, that support is “locked in” and those supporters have the option of going home, as their vote is unchangeable.
Also, early voters and caucusgoers will be counted at the same time.
Despite voting earlier — a process in which voters chose three to five candidate preferences — precinct chairs will not have access to this information until they log into a party-issued iPad and obtain the results through a Google form. On caucus day, if a candidate reaches the 15% threshold, those votes — combined with in-person support and early vote first-choice preference — are then locked in.
This leaves the supporters of nonviable candidates to recaucus for the final round.
Here’s a quick summary of how it works for in-person caucusgoers and for early voters who have already cast their preferences:
Those recaucusing in person have several choices; they can:
For early voters, their votes will pan out in one of two ways:
If an early voter’s first choice is for a candidate who is viable after the first alignment, those votes will be locked in with the caucusgoers.
If an early voter’s first choice is not viable, depending on how the second alignment process goes for the Nevadans on caucus day, early votes will either go with the person’s next viable option or be able to go with their first choice if it then becomes viable.
This being the case, early voters can play a strategic role in the caucusing process.
↑ Back to topFor the Democratic candidates, the four early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are more about momentum and winnowing the field than about actually racking up an impressive delegate haul.
Today there are 36 delegates at stake.
Coming in to Nevada, Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has the narrow delegate lead, 22 to 21, over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Click here for our delegate tracker.
Only 2% of delegates have been allocated so far. Remember: Candidates need 1,991 delegates to secure their nomination on the first ballot at the Democratic convention.
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The check-in process has begun at caucus sites across the state. Caucusing won’t begin for about another hour, but voters can start the process.
An open question at this point is, frankly, how many people will be involved in Saturday’s in-person caucusing? Nevada Democrats were able to caucus early for the first time this year, and more than 70,000 people participated. Party leaders touted those numbers and announced Friday that the party also registered 10,000 more people as Democrats during the early voting period.
The question then becomes, according to Dan Lee, a political science professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whether those early voters were people who were going to participate Saturday or whether the early turnout is an indicator of huge total turnout numbers.
“The first question I have is: How many people are even going to show up?” Lee asked. “How busy is it going to be at these precincts?”
The turnout record in Nevada was set in 2008, when almost 120,000 people participated in the Democratic caucuses.
↑ Back to topBillionaire businessman Tom Steyer has accounted for two-thirds of Democratic candidates’ total ad spending in Nevada. He has spent more than $16 million, mostly on broadcast ads, according to the ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
After performing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire, Steyer has focused his resources on the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina.
Two new super PACs, which are separate from campaign spending, are helping Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The Persist PAC officially launched on Tuesday and in just three days has spent almost $800,000 on ads for Warren in Nevada. The group’s ad spending has bumped total expenditures on behalf of Warren in Nevada to nearly $2.5 million.
Warren has long criticized super PACs, and her presidential campaign has made a point of not soliciting money from wealthy donors.
Klobuchar is also being supported by a superPAC despite saying she opposes them. The group, known as Kitchen Table Conversations, has spent nearly $300,000 on her behalf in Nevada, bringing her total to just under $1.2 million.
This all comes after the super PAC Vote Nurses Values backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, despite his campaign also swearing off that kind of outside support. The group, which is directly linked to the union National Nurses United, has spent just over $170,000 on radio ads in Nevada.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has already spent $452 million on ads nationwide, has only spent about $154,000 in Nevada, since he is not an option for caucusgoers on Saturday.
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A day after once again downplaying U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia aided his own 2016 campaign and is once again trying to boost his reelection effort, President Trump is publicizing allegations that Russian intelligence is also trying to boost Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
The tweet from the president, coming just before Nevada Democrats meet to caucus, caps a 24-hour period confirming fears that reports about Russian interference in the 2020 election will be weaponized by the president and Democratic campaigns alike.
On Friday afternoon, The Washington Post reported that intelligence officials had briefed the Sanders campaign on Russian intelligence efforts to boost the Vermont senator’s presidential bid. While the report did not include details on the actual efforts themselves, special counsel Robert Mueller found that Russian actors worked to boost Sanders in 2016, as well.
The Sanders campaign initially sent out a statement condemning Russian election interference, but shortly after that, Sanders implied to reporters that The Washington Post was serving some sort of agenda with the report’s timing. “One day before the Nevada caucus. Why do you think it came out? The Washington Post — good friends,” he said to reporters in California.
Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, later told NPR that the report was factual and that the Sanders campaign had been briefed a month ago. Shakir theorized, without specific evidence, that the Trump administration had leaked the information to damage Sanders.
“It’s no surprise to me that this leak occurred in The Washington Post. You have Donald Trump, who came to Nevada one day before the Nevada caucus, and said in a speech, ‘Bernie Sanders’ and ‘Moscow’ in the same breath. And then he gets on a plane, and an hour later, we hear in The Washington Post that … Russian actors have been trying to quote, unquote, support the campaign,” Shakir said.
Within hours, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign had tweeted “Feel The Bern” in Russian, and campaign staffers from his and former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign were arguing on Twitter about which of their candidates were the ones that Russia didn’t want.
“They’re engaged again right now, as we speak, trying to affect not only the general election, but who becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party,” Biden warned at a Friday evening rally in Las Vegas.
“Folks, we’ve got to wake up,” Biden said.
Asked directly why he thinks Russia would try to boost Sanders, Shakir said the country’s main goal is to “sow discord.”
He thinks Friday’s news cycle is proof it’s working. “Instead of unifying against Russia and saying Russian actors are the problem here, they are now criticizing Bernie Sanders and falling into the exact trap that has been laid here.”
↑ Back to topBernie Sanders is the favorite in yet another contest, heading into the Nevada caucuses. In 2016, Sanders lost by about 5 percentage points, but showed strength with Latino voters, according to entrance polls.
He’s hoping that a fractured field, and that replicating and building on some of that strength with Latinos from 2016, can help him win in Nevada this time.
So what does Nevada’s Democratic electorate look like, especially after Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the whitest states in the country, voted? Here are some key things to watch with various groups, with a look at the entrance polls from the 2016 contest:
Gender:
Race:
Age:
Ideology:
Education
Where does the vote come from?
Former Vice President Joe Biden has been insisting that his campaign will perform much better once the race moved to more diverse states.
Nevada is a test for that theory.
It’s a majority-minority state, with sizable Latino, Asian and black populations.
Biden supporters in Nevada reject the idea that somehow his fourth-place finish in Iowa and fifth-place finish in New Hampshire translate to their state.
"We have Iowa with small towns and farming, and we have New Hampshire with a very conservative area that’s isolated from the rest of the area. And then you have Las Vegas and Nevada. We reflect the cross section of America," said Tom Vannozzi, a 69-year-old precinct captain for Biden. "It’s very important what we do.”
Biden loyalists know that no matter what the actual numerical results are, their candidate needs a jolt of momentum.
At his final caucus-eve rally in Las Vegas, Biden was welcomed by members of the Latino Victory Fund, an influential advocacy group that endorsed him earlier in the week. That endorsement was key for Biden, who has trailed Bernie Sanders among Latinos in most recent polls.
"I think a Top 2 finish here is great," said John Flynn, who was an adviser to Biden when he was vice president and who now lives in Nevada. "Even like a strong third.”
But still, supporters are anxious about setting expectations too high for the former vice president.
"Nevada’s great, but Nevada, you know, there’s not that many delegates," said Jay Sachnowitz, a Biden supporter as he waited in line at the final rally ahead of Saturday’s caucuses. "The delegates are Super Tuesday and South Carolina. So that’s going to decide what’s going to happen."
Nevada will award 36 delegates for the Democratic nomination, while South Carolina awards 54 and more than 1,300 are up for grabs on Super Tuesday, March 3.
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Saturday’s results in Nevada could signal where Latinos will lend their support in the Democratic nomination fight.
The state boasts one of the largest shares of Latinos in the country, and its caucuses were moved up in the national Democratic schedule thanks to its diversity.
Several voters told NPR that they were propelled to vote in the caucuses because of concerns about President Trump and what they characterized as his anti-immigrant rhetoric, in addition to kitchen table issues.
“We have this saying that Latinos and Latinas go to the polls with immigration on their hearts, but with jobs, the economy, health care and housing on their minds and top of mind,” said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of Latino advocacy group UnidosUS.
Energized Latino voters already generated long lines at early Democratic voting sites earlier this week.
The trends could be reflected in overall figures collected by the Nevada Democratic Party for the state’s first early caucus voting effort. The officials said that nearly 75,000 turned out and that many were first-time voters.
In 2016, 84,000 voted in the state’s one-day caucus effort.
Rosa Mares, a housekeeper at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, was among those voting early. She said she was voting for the first time in a U.S. election after living here for 30 years. She was encouraged by her family to become a citizen only a few months ago and then to vote. She pointed to immigration as one of her concerns.
“It’s not right that [Trump] is causing division,” she said in her native Spanish. “There has to be unity.”
She declined to say whom she picked, but emphasized that aside from immigration, her health care through her membership of the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union was critical.
“Hopefully we pick the right person who will fight for us,” Mares said.
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Stepping into billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s “Battle Ready” rally on Friday night in Las Vegas felt more like walking into a really fancy, well-financed party at a club rather than a campaign event.
The industrial space was filled with strobe lights, twinkle lights, light-up plants (OK, just a lot of lights), Instagram-worthy faux-grass pillars with the word “TOM” in glowing red and blue, food, drinks, a DJ and a performance by TLC, whose hits “Waterfalls” and “No Scrubs” kept the 500-person crowd dancing and singing. (Note: Steyer’s campaign has said the band’s appearance was arranged through a booker and isn’t an endorsement.)
It’s not exactly common to see people waving their beer and “IT’S THE ECONOMY” signs in the air as they rock out to Icona Pop’s electro-remix of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”
But this is the campaign in Las Vegas.
The racially diverse crowd was made up of supporters from teenagers with their parents in tow to college students to grandparents.
Lynn Arce says that kind of diversity meshes with Steyer’s messaging.
“I’m really energized by Steyer,” she said. “He’s for everyone. I really believe that race, along with climate, have to be the top priority, and he seems to be the candidate that is putting it first and foremost.”
Arce said she was originally nervous that Steyer didn’t make the debate stage earlier this week, worrying it could hurt his chances in Nevada. But after watching the debate, she thinks it may have been a good thing he wasn’t there.
“The debate seemed vicious,” Arce said. “I’m hoping Tom just stays on message, which he seems very consistent on that and so I think things will go his way.”
Once TLC finished performing, Steyer took the stage and emphasized his core messages of climate change (“We need to rebuild America in a climate-smart way”) and the economy, saying he’s the only candidate who can go after President Trump on the economy and win.
Before heading to the campaign’s selfie line, Steyer urged supporters to bring friends and family with them to caucus on Saturday.
“The threat we have is if we don’t come together,” he said. “That’s why Nevada matters so much. Nevada is the first place where we have diversity. This is the first place where you can claim you pulled together the broadest coalition that is the Democratic Party.
“If we win tomorrow, we’re going to win the whole god**** thing,” he said to cheers.
While people were still partying on the dance floor, Steyer left to attend a town hall of a very different vibe: one hosted by Mi Familia Vota at a union hall for plumbers and welders. Before taking questions from the smaller, primarily Latino crowd, he focused on immigration and what he called a humanitarian crisis at the border. The night ended with the crowd chanting, “Sí se puede” (roughly translating to: “Yes, we can” or “Yes, it can be done”).
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Saturday’s caucuses will feature the most diverse electorate yet in this Democratic presidential nominating contest. And it presents a challenge for each of the candidates in the race. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who finished second in Nevada in 2016, is the favorite in yet another race, as the more moderate candidates continue to duke it out.
Here are six things we’re especially watching today:
Catch up on the stakes with our preview here, and stay with us right here for results and analysis all day long.
↑ Back to topThe crew caught up in Nevada on the eve of the caucuses. They talk about how confident officials are, with an early caucusing boom, and how well candidates are engaging Latino voters in the state.
This episode: congressional correspondent Scott Detrow and political reporters Claudia Grisales and Miles Parks.
Listen to the episode here, stay for the end of Scott’s (sort of) fake number story:
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In a whirlwind Las Vegas tour, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her final case to Democratic voters in Nevada to pick her as the presidential nominee on the eve of the state’s caucus day.
Warren visited the popular local eatery Tacos El Gordo, in a strip mall shopping center in East Las Vegas, and then held a town hall styled as a block party.
“I need your help in this election,” she told customers at the taco shop. “Get out there and vote.”
Warren came into Nevada looking to regain her footing after she came in third or worse in Iowa and New Hampshire.
She drew new energy from her debate performance Wednesday when she attacked former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his records on law enforcement and labor and for claims of discrimination involving women.
Former Democratic presidential candidate and now-surrogate Julián Castro campaigned on her behalf throughout the state in recent days and weeks.
At Tacos El Gordo, Warren visited with workers in the kitchen and at tables of customers surrounded by hot pink walls at the bustling eatery. Warren herself ordered a beef steak taco with cilantro, salsa and guacamole – hold the onions.
“I knew her name … but I hadn’t met her,” worker Norma Vasquez, who took a selfie with Warren and is now considering voting for her Saturday, said in her native Spanish. “She made a good impression, and she seems like a good person.”
David Blackmon Jr. just happened to be visiting the eatery before getting a Warren selfie as well. Blackmon said he was a Warren fan already and is planning to vote for her.
“I just came to get tacos, and then next thing I know I saw all the cameras … and Elizabeth Warren,” he said.
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President Trump held a midday rally in Las Vegas on Friday ahead of the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, another in a series of events to counterprogram the Democratic race. Nevada Republicans canceled their caucuses, so Trump is not even on the ballot here until the general election in November.
His rally speech, like many, was a mix of promoting the economy, warning about people who are living in the country illegally, deriding the media and mocking the Democrats vying to run against him.
"Mini Mike so far has spent almost $500 million in order to get embarrassed by Pocahontas,” he said referring to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s criticism of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg during Wednesday’s Democratic debate.
“And she’s mean, isn’t she? Do you see the anger on her face? That nervous energy? She’s jumping up and down, she’s a mess,” Trump said.
Trump pointed out that he spent far less of his own fortune on his 2016 run for office than Bloomberg is currently spending.
He touched on the recent news of an intelligence assessment that suggested Russians are intending to meddle in the 2020 campaign to aid his reelection — but only to suggest the reports are a partisan attack and a “disinformation” campaign to hurt him.
Hillary Clinton won Nevada in the 2016 general election, and the state is one Republicans are eager to reclaim. Polls show Republicans are enthusiastic about the 2020 election, and in a clear sign of that enthusiasm, hundreds of people sporting red Trump hats lined up hours before the rally began.
“It is such an honor to be in the same place as the president,” said Twilight Dwyer, a 51-year-old surgical assistant as she put on a “Keep America Great” T-shirt she had just purchased. “He is honest … he does not bulls***.”
Dwyer said she had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because he “spoke well,” but said she came to believe that was a mistake. “Yes, [Trump] cannot speak very well, but who can? The ones who speak well are the bulls******s,” she said.
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U.S. officials have told Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign that Russian intelligence agents are trying to help the candidate and to meddle in the Democratic presidential contest, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Sanders released a statement that does not challenge the premise of the Post’s story.
“Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts, and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election,” Sanders said in the statement.
Sanders made a similar statement in February 2018 after indictments brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation revealed that agents of the Russian GRU intelligence services had also acted on Sanders’ behalf in his bid to be the Democratic candidate in 2016.
Speaking to reporters in Nevada today, Sanders confirmed there was an intelligence briefing with his campaign, saying it took place “a month ago.”
In his statement today, Sanders seemed to blame Russia for "some of the ugly stuff on the internet attributed to our campaign" — an allusion to aggressive online attacks from “Bernie bros” — "may well not be coming from real supporters."
Meanwhile, President Trump has bristled at stories by the Post and The New York Times that said lawmakers were told by U.S. intelligence officials that Russia was meddling in the campaign in his favor.
Trump called the suggestion that Russia prefers him “another misinformation campaign” by Democrats. At a rally in Las Vegas on Friday, he told his supporters that it was “a rumor” and “disinformation.”
This story was updated with Sanders’ comments to reporters in Nevada.
↑ Back to topTwo days after facing tough questions about the agreements and accusations in a Democratic debate, presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg says his company has identified three nondisclosure agreements with women "to address complaints about comments they said I had made" and that the women are free to seek a release from the agreements to publicly discuss their allegations.
Read the story here.
↑ Back to topPresidential candidates filed their first monthly fundraising reports last night and, as expected, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg outspent all the other candidates by a wide margin.
As of the end of January, Bloomberg had invested more than $460 million of his own fortune into the race, roughly half of which he spent in January.
This most recent data shows where candidates were just days before the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3.
Among candidates who are relying on more traditional funding sources, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders fared the best. He raised $25 million in donations, bringing his total raised so far to more than $134 million. Sanders also had more cash on hand than any Democratic candidate who is not self-funding.
Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who leads the field in pledged delegates going into the Nevada caucuses, raised far less: $6.2 million in January. It will be a month until we have concrete numbers on how his fundraising fared after his strong Iowa and New Hampshire performances.
As for President Trump, his campaign raised more money than each of the Democratic candidates who rely on traditional fundraising to fuel their races.
See our full campaign finance tracker here.
↑ Back to topWith about 75,000 Nevadans casting their votes early, total turnout for the Democratic caucuses may surpass that of 2016, when 84,000 people cast ballots.
This is the first year that the Nevada Democratic Party has allowed early voting before the caucuses. Experts are watching how well new technology works to sort those votes and help with counting on Saturday.
Both parties have seen caucus turnout fluctuate since Nevada became an early voting state in 2008, a change that was championed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
That year, Democratic caucus turnout shot up to a record high of close to 120,000 Nevadans — 10 times as many as voted four years earlier. But, eight years later, in the 2016 caucuses, Democratic turnout was almost 30% less.
Nevada Republicans chose not to hold caucuses this year, but they have also seen sharp changes in turnout over the years. Republican voter turnout increased by 127% in 2016 from 2012 levels, with then-candidate Donald Trump receiving 46% of the vote.
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Nevada Democrats face a tall task on Saturday: integrate nearly 75,000 early votes into the normal caucus process — with a technology that has not been used this way before.
After the Iowa technology meltdown earlier this month, the Nevada state party scrapped a plan to use the same company that designed that now-infamous smartphone app.
Instead, precinct leaders across the state will use party-provided iPads and access a customized set of Google forms to help with the caucus math and provide each precinct with its early vote data.
It’s a plan that came together over the past two weeks, with details being finalized just days ago.
Technology experts have applauded Nevada Democrats for their transparency — the party hosted media members for a mock caucus using the iPads early this week — and for the fact that there will be backups in place. The party is providing early vote data to precinct leaders as well, so they will be able to do everything manually, using paper and a pencil, if necessary.
Still, it has been a rushed process, said Betsy Cooper, the executive director of the Aspen Tech Policy Hub.
“I vastly prefer this solution to others that Nevada could have chosen,” Cooper said. “But I do worry that the amount of testing that has gone in is minimal and the amount of time for security professionals to study how this might be made vulnerable has been very limited.”
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No one quite defines Nevada Democratic politics like Harry Reid. The former Senate majority leader has been able to make or break candidates statewide and is widely regarded as having an unparalleled turnout machine.
And now he’s making the case that, with Iowa’s troubles, perhaps Nevada should go first in the Democratic presidential nominating process.
"I think we have a tremendously good case now," Reid told NPR’s Tamara Keith. He noted Nevada’s far-more diverse population than either of the current first two states, Iowa or New Hampshire. He added that Americans "get a false perception of what’s happening around the country when you have those two states determining what’s going to happen in a presidential election. I don’t think it’s fair."
Reid, 80, a boxer in his youth, has always been happy to mix it up and cause trouble. He even said he’d be happy to play a deal-making role at a brokered convention. And he had ideas for two others who should be tapped to help out.
"Maybe we could even get Barack Obama to do it," Reid said. "The two most popular people in the country, and perhaps the world, are Barack and Michelle Obama."
↑ Back to topIn the run-up to this weekend’s caucuses, many commentators have noted that Nevada is more racially diverse than Iowa or New Hampshire. But that’s just one of the ways Nevada stands out.
It’s also the least educated of the early voting states. About 24% of Nevadans hold college degrees, compared with 31.5% nationwide. The state is also more heavily unionized. About 1 in 7 workers in Nevada belongs to a union, compared with 1 in 10 workers nationwide.
Nevada is more heavily dependent on leisure and hospitality than any other state, with 25% of Nevada workers employed in those industries. That’s down a bit from 30% in 2000. By contrast, Nevada is about half as dependent on manufacturing as the nation as a whole.
Nevada suffered badly during the recession and took almost two years longer than the rest of the country to recover all of its lost jobs. Employment has been growing steadily since 2014, though. At 3.8% in December, Nevada’s unemployment rate is slightly above the national average and more than a full percentage point higher than Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina’s.
Last year, Nevada had the second-highest population growth rate in the country, after Idaho. Many of the new residents are transplants from other states, including the former Oakland Raiders, who relocate to Las Vegas this fall.
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OK, Nevada, you’re up.
The state’s Democratic caucuses take place Saturday, and recent polling puts Bernie Sanders in a strong position to win there.
The Vermont senator followed up a virtual tie for first in Iowa’s caucuses with a narrow win in the New Hampshire primary. Another victory Saturday would more firmly establish the self-described democratic socialist in the role of front-runner in the party’s presidential nominating contest.
Nevada could also be a key proving ground for several other candidates.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are both looking to regain momentum in their faltering campaigns; Warren may have kick-started this effort with pointed attacks during Wednesday’s debate.
Meanwhile, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will aim for strong finishes to demonstrate their appeal among more diverse voting coalitions. Conversely, billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has made a direct pitch to minority voters, is seeking his best finish yet. (Remember, the other billionaire candidate, Mike Bloomberg, isn’t on the Nevada ballot.)
The candidates’ changing ambitions are due in part to the nominating contest’s shift to more diverse states. While Iowa and New Hampshire are about 90% white, Nevada has a far larger minority population. In 2016, 41% of Democratic caucusgoers were nonwhite, according to entrance polls.
Another factor to consider: Nearly 75,000 Nevadans have already made their preferences known, after participating in the state’s first-ever early caucuses.
For comparison, just 84,000 people caucused in total in the 2016 Democratic contest, and nearly 120,000 people caucused in 2008.
And as NPR’s Miles Parks has reported, the party is using new technology to integrate the early vote totals into Saturday’s caucus results.
The new technology comes as Nevada Democrats desperately seek to avoid any issues tallying or reporting the results of their caucuses, after Iowa’s well-known errors.
Oh, one more thing: President Trump holds a Las Vegas rally today, the latest in his counterprogramming efforts to steal some of the Democratic caucuses’s spotlight.
So follow along with us. This page will provide updates and results, which — barring a Iowa-like debacle — should come Saturday evening, Eastern time.
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