Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has won the Nevada caucuses, winning a plurality of county delegates.
In a speech, Sanders sounded a hopeful tone, saying, “When I look out at an audience like this and I see the diversity and beauty in this audience … I have absolute confidence we can create a government based on compassion, based on love and based on truth, not what we have now of greed, corruption and lies.”
Sanders’s second straight victory, and his razor-thin second-place finish in the Iowa caucus, make him the race’s current front-runner heading into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday, where one-third of the delegates will be awarded.
Sanders promised that his future Cabinet would “look like America,” but joked, “There will be at least one old white guy up there.”
Biden’s entire campaign will come down to how well he fares in the Palmetto State.
“Y’all did it for me,” Biden told supporters in Las Vegas. “Now it’s time to go on to South Carolina to win and take this back.”
Also competing in the state were former vice president Joe Biden; former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); and investor Tom Steyer.
Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg was not contesting Nevada.
Unlike Iowa, there were few signs of technological malfunctions during the Nevada caucuses this afternoon.
President Trump used his offensive nickname for Sanders to weigh in on the state of play in the Nevada caucuses, maligning the rest of the Democratic field and coaching Sanders to not let the Democratic Party establishment “take it away from you.”
Trump, who had been fixated on Biden, called the former vice president and the other Democrats “weak.”
Shifting his attention to Bloomberg in recent weeks, Trump prognosticated that the billionaire couldn’t “restart” his campaign after his weak performance in this week’s debate.
Trump and Republicans have accused Democrats of trying to halt Sanders’s momentum and have feigned concern over the party’s treatment of Sanders.
Trump appears eager to run against Sanders and his progressive agenda, even though national polls have consistently shown Sanders beating Trump.