Senator Bernie Sanders won the primaries in Nevada on Saturday with a resoundingness that makes him the man to beat for the nomination of the Democratic Party in 2020. In a race between six candidates, Sanders exceeded 50% of the votes in the preliminary results , with more than twice as many supports as the second, former Vice President Joe Biden. Sanders' victory in a diverse state of the interior puts him in a position of enormous strength in the face of the super Tuesday, when a third of the delegates will be distributed for the Democratic convention.
The Nevada Democratic Party had informally informed the press that reliable preliminary results could be expected around five in the afternoon. At half past two in the afternoon, Fox News said that according to his projections, Bernie Sanders had won. At half past four, with 1% of the results, the difference between Sanders and Biden in Las Vegas was so great that NBC gave Sanders a winner. The Associated Press agency announced Sanders as a winner 10 minutes before five in the afternoon, with only 4% of the data.
With those figures, Vice President Joe Biden appeared with 19% of the vote, less than half that of Sanders. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg were in third place with 10% and 9% respectively.
The Iowa caucuses on February 3 did not fulfill their function of ruling out non-viable candidates. A disastrous count made the tie between Sanders and Pete Buttigieg irrelevant in the first state. In the second, New Hampshire, Sanders won more clearly, followed closely by Buttigieg. The campaign reached Nevada, a state of three million inhabitants with 30% of Latinos, without a clear favorite. Sanders' victory on Saturday is so resounding that, now, he is the leader at the head of these primaries and the man to beat in the coming weeks.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, with such low results that no Nevada delegate will have, promised to stay in the race. Klobuchar bets to play a good role in the Midwestern states. Vice President Joe Biden had an enthusiastic intervention before his followers in Las Vegas. "We're going to win in South Carolina and we're going to get this back!" Biden said. He thanked the unions for their support and complained that "the press gives dead people very quickly." The primary schools in South Carolina are next February 29. That's where Biden has to win to revive his candidacy, thanks to his predicament with the African-American vote.
The condition of Bernie Sanders as the new leader of this race and as a man to beat became clear in the intervention of Pete Buttigieg before his followers in Las Vegas. Buttigieg congratulated Sanders for the victory. "But before rushing to nominate Senator Sanders in our only chance to win this president, we must consider what is at stake," he added. "Sanders believes in an inflexible revolution that leaves out most Democrats and let's not say most Americans."