Bernie Sanders solidified his front-runner status with what appeared to be a decisive victory in the Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada on Saturday, while Joe Biden was on track for a second-place finish that would give his struggling campaign new hope, Trend reports citing Reuters.
Sanders, a senator from Vermont, rode a wave of backing from a diverse coalition of young and middle-aged voters, Latinos, union members and white college-educated women to a win in Nevada, showing signs of expanding support for his front-running campaign beyond his longstanding core.
“We have put together a multi-generational, multiracial coalition that is going to not only win in Nevada, it’s going to sweep the country,” Sanders told cheering supporters in San Antonio, Texas.
Biden, the former vice president, appeared to score a badly needed strong finish after poor showings in the first two contests in Iowa and New Hampshire for the party’s nomination to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November election.
Sanders had 44% of the county convention delegates in Nevada with about 11% of the precincts reported, as results were slow to roll in six hours after the caucuses began. Biden was a distant second to Sanders with 25%, but ahead of former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, in third with 15%.
“The press is ready to declare people dead quickly, but we’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re gonna win,” Biden told supporters in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Senator Elizabeth Warren was trailing in a disappointing fourth with 8% in Nevada, where voters poured into more than 250 sites around the state. Senator Amy Klobuchar and activist billionaire Tom Steyer were well back at 4%.
Buttigieg cautioned Democrats about nominating Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist that he portrayed as an ideologue.
“We can prioritize either ideological purity or inclusive victory. We can either call people names online or we can call them into our movement. We can either tighten a narrow and hardcore base or open the tent to a new, broad, big-hearted American coalition,” Buttigieg told supporters in Las Vegas.
The race now begins to broaden across the country, with the next primary on Feb. 29 in South Carolina, followed by the Super Tuesday contests in 14 states on March 3 that pick more than one-third of the pledged delegates who will help select a Democratic nominee.