Decisive Nevada victory boosts Bernie Sanders' chances

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' decisive and expected victory in the Nevada caucus has further strengthened his status as the favourite to pick up the Democratic nomination come July, as his more moderate rivals continue to struggle to catch up.

Mr Sanders had more than double the votes of his rivals as of last night Singapore time with half the precincts reporting - with 46.6 per cent to second-place finisher and former vice-president Joe Biden's 19.2 per cent.

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg came in third at 15.4 per cent, barely over the threshold needed to win delegates. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren had 10.3 per cent, while Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar got 4.5 per cent.

"The basic takeaway here is that it's Bernie's nomination to lose," said FiveThirtyEight website pollster and founder Nate Silver.

"Exactly how big his margin is in Nevada, who finishes second et cetera, may tell us something about precisely how likely he is to lose it, and who is most likely to take it away from him. But it's his race to lose," he added.

Mr Sanders' victory on Saturday in Nevada, where Latinos are just under a third of the state's population, was buoyed by strong Latino and youth support.

Entrance polls showed more than half of Latino voters backed him, and that Mr Sanders came second only to Mr Biden among African-Americans, 27 per cent to 36 per cent.

Mr Sanders beat out all other candidates for the most support from white voters as well.

The breadth of his support augurs well for him in the upcoming bonanza of Super Tuesday primaries next week, when a third of all pledged delegates will be up for grabs.

Fourteen states will vote for their preferred Democratic candidate that day. They include the demographically diverse states of California and Texas, which together offer such a large number of delegates that should Mr Sanders win decisively there, the nomination will be as good as his.

Mr Sanders said his Nevada win showed his ability to build a broad coalition and a strong grassroots movement.

In a victory speech to his supporters in Texas, the 78-year-old said: "We have just put together a multigenerational, multiracial coalition which is not going to only win in Nevada, it's going to sweep this country."

In contrast, Mr Buttigieg and Ms Klobuchar, who did well in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire early this month, trailed far behind Mr Sanders in Nevada.

"Compared to Iowa and New Hampshire, minorities form a far higher percentage of Nevada's electorate, posing a tougher test of candidates' ability to form the kind of broad coalition critical to winning the Democratic nomination," said Eurasia Group analysts Todd Mariano and Jeffrey Wright in a pre-Nevada research note last Friday.

Mr Sanders also cleared another hurdle in Nevada: whether his "Medicare For All" proposal would turn union workers away from him for fear of losing their company insurance plans under his proposal, which would abolish private insurance in favour of a single public scheme.

There were questions about whether Mr Sanders' traditional support among unions would continue to hold in the run-up to the election.

Nevada has union membership well above the national rate at 14.6 per cent. But the Culinary Union, Nevada's most powerful labour group with 60,000 members, declined once again to endorse a candidate and released a flier attacking Mr Sanders and Medicare For All, Mr Mariano and Mr Wright noted.

Beyond Mr Sanders' front runner status, Nevada also highlighted an overall fractiousness in the Democratic camp that may undermine the party in the race for the White House, especially given the Republican Party's unity in support of its incumbent, President Donald Trump.

Animosities between several Democratic front runners exploded into the open during last Wednesday's televised debate, the fiercest of the nine to date.

That animus continued in Nevada as Mr Buttigieg, who came in a distant third, went after Mr Sanders' campaign and fourth-place finisher Ms Warren went after former New York City mayor and media mogul Michael Bloomberg.

Mr Buttigieg decried Mr Sanders' "vision of capitalism as the root of all evil", saying: "Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans."

Ms Warren accused Mr Bloomberg, who is sitting out the early races and going all-in in the delegate-rich Super Tuesday states, of dropping hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the election.

"He argues that he is the safest bet to beat Donald Trump. He's not safe, he's just rich," she said, adding that Mr Bloomberg's decision not to release his taxes until after the election, history of gender discrimination and defence of past racist policies made him too similar to Mr Trump.