What Hillary Clinton’s Nevada victory means

Hillary Clinton regains her footing in the Democratic nomination race by beating Bernie Sanders soundly among older women and African Americans. 

|
John Locher/AP
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a Nevada Democratic caucus rally Saturday in Las Vegas.

By winning a solid victory in the Nevada Democratic caucuses Saturday, Hillary Clinton has righted her faltering campaign and heads into her party’s primary in South Carolina next Saturday with crucial momentum.

Mrs. Clinton’s blowout loss to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 had raised questions about the “enthusiasm gap” she suffers against Senator Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and his legions of youthful supporters. Now she heads into South Carolina with the legitimacy conferred by a solid victory in Nevada, even if by just a few percentage points.

At time of writing, with 85 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton led Sanders by about five percentage points, 52.5 percent to 47.4 percent.

“Hillary Clinton has dealt a body blow to the rebellion in this party,” said Van Jones, a former adviser to President Obama, on CNN. “Bernie Sanders has to go back to the drawing board.”

Clinton won big among older women and African Americans in Nevada, while Sanders won big among men and young voters, according to entrance polls. Sanders also won the Hispanic vote, by eight points, though the Clinton campaign disputes that figure. About 39 percent of Nevada voters are people of color.

The entrance polls also showed the importance of organization, and the unreliability of young voters in their ability or willingness to turn out. Some two-thirds of Nevada caucus-goers were age 45 or older, and Clinton won two-thirds of that cohort. Sanders won seven in 10 caucus-goers under age 45.

In her victory speech, Clinton mentioned Sanders only once – in the beginning, when she congratulated him on a hard-fought race. But Sanders’s influence was unmistakable.

“Americans are right to be angry, but we're also hungry for real solutions,” she said, reaching out to Sanders supporters.

“Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten Main Street again,” Clinton added. She spoke of “the voices of Flint and Ferguson,” references to the lead-contaminated water in majority-black Flint, Mich., and the fatal shooting in 2014 of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Mo., by a white police officer.

Sanders, in his remarks to supporters, noted that just five weeks ago, he was 25 points behind Clinton and wound up close, after getting a late start. Clinton set up shop in Nevada in April 2015, while Sanders didn’t get organized there until October.

"What this entire campaign has been about is the issue of momentum, is the issue of bringing more and more people into the political process," he said.

Sanders is likely to end up with almost as many convention delegates from Nevada as Clinton. 

The entrance polls showed another dimension of Clinton’s vulnerability that could hurt her in the general election, if she’s the Democratic nominee: voter skepticism of her character, even among members of her own party.

Nevada caucus-goers who valued honesty, trustworthiness, and having a candidate who cares about people like them supported Sanders overwhelmingly. Clinton won big among voters who valued electability and experience.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What Hillary Clinton’s Nevada victory means
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0220/What-Hillary-Clinton-s-Nevada-victory-means
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe