LAS VEGAS — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won a decisive victory here on Saturday, solidifying the 78-year-old democratic socialist’s position as the front-runner in the chaotic Democratic presidential race.
Buoyed by a strong performance with Latino and young voters, Sanders won the first-in-the-West caucuses, adding to his New Hampshire victory and near-tie for first in Iowa, according to the Associated Press. With about 49 percent of the vote in, Sanders held a big lead in the county delegates allocated by the caucuses, with 47 percent. Second was former vice president Joe Biden, with 19 percent; former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg at 15 percent; Senator Elizabeth Warren at 10 percent; investor Tom Steyer at 4 percent; and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at 3 percent.
Already in Texas by the time the results came in, Sanders declared victory in front of hundreds of cheering supporters in San Antonio Saturday night. “We have just put together a multi-generational, multiracial coalition which is not only going to win in Nevada—it’s going to sweep this country,” he said.
Sanders now heads into South Carolina’s primary next Saturday and the sweepstakes of 14 Super Tuesday states on March 3 considerably strengthened, putting him in a good position to vacuum up more delegates than any of his rivals if he’s able to hold his edge going forward. His victory also sharpens the divide within the party over whether Sanders is too far left to win a general election against President Trump, an argument his Democratic opponents hammered home.
Buttigieg asked Democrats to take a “sober look” at the consequences of nominating Sanders. “Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” Buttigieg told his supporters in Las Vegas Saturday evening.
And Biden emphasized to his supporters earlier on Saturday that he is a Democrat for a “simple" reason. “I ain’t a socialist,” he said, reminding the crowd of Sanders’ further left views.
Nevada was the first test of the Democratic candidates’ appeal to a more diverse electorate that reflects the nation’s population as a whole, compared with the mostly white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Nevada’s population is nearly a third Latino and 10 percent Black.
Sanders’ success here could deflate some stereotypes about his supporters being overwhelmingly white and male. He won more than half of the state’s Latinos, according to entrance polls, and led among women voters. His success among nonwhite voters could deal a blow to Biden, who has staked his candidacy on his “electability” and his appeal to minority voters. Biden beat Sanders by just 9 percent among Black voters, the entrance polls showed.
Several of Sanders’ rivals, including Buttigieg and Biden, ratcheted up attacks against him in the days before the caucuses. But former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was not on the ballot in Nevada though he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into competing in later states, attracted much of the field’s ire when he appeared on the debate stage here on Wednesday. That temporarily diverted the others from Sanders.
Front-runner status also means Sanders will likely attract bruising attacks from rivals realizing that their own lackluster showings are setting him on a clear path to the nomination.
Buttigieg, for example, darkly warned that by March 4 Sanders could be the presumptive nominee, with the party deeply divided.
“We could wake up in 10 days with Senator Sanders with a prohibitive lead or we could wake up on the road to a unified party,” he told reporters while visiting a caucus site on Saturday.
At the debate, none of candidates would agree that, short of getting a majority, the leading vote-getter should automatically become the party’s nominee. That sets up a potential clash at the Democratic National Convention should Sanders continue his momentum. A candidate needs 1,991 pledged delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot at the convention, and Nevada awards 36 of them.
At a Saturday night rally in San Antonio, Sanders confidently predicted another victory in the Super Tuesday state as well. “Don’t tell anybody, I don’t want to get them nervous,” he joked to his fired-up fans. “We are going to win the Democratic primary in Texas!”
In Nevada, Sanders took a softer approach to campaigning, and stressed his biography more than in New Hampshire and Iowa. He called himself the “son of an immigrant to this country” and, while talking about his housing policy, fondly recalling that he grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn.
Warren appeared to be on track for a disappointing finish in Nevada despite her blockbuster debate performance last Wednesday that boosted her fund-raising and rocketed her back into the public eye. Her allies hoped the star turn would facilitate a comeback after Warren faltered with a third-place finish in Iowa and fourth-place showing in New Hampshire.
But thanks to early voting, tens of thousands of Nevadans had cast their ballots before Warren even stepped onstage, potentially blunting the impact of her evisceration of Bloomberg. Entrance polls found Warren performed particularly well with voters who made up their minds in the final days of the race.
Among those were Cody and Amber Foard, who were planning to caucus for Sanders before they watched Warren attack Bloomberg onstage.
“We need someone who can attack Trump like that,” said Cody Foard, shortly before he caucused for her.
But Sanders’ apparent big win means the path for anyone else is narrower, and if Biden holds second place that could help him be seen as a more viable alternative, especially if moderates such as Buttigieg and Klobuchar are not able to notch a win.
Still, after her strong debate performance brought a burst of new fund-raising to a campaign that badly needed it, Warren will have the money to hang on and compete in later states, positioning herself as an alternative to Sanders.
“We have a lot of states to go and right now I can feel the momentum,” Warren told thousands of cheering supporters in Seattle, touting her campaign’s $9 million post-debate fund-raising haul. “So let’s stay in this fight.” She congratulated Sanders on his victory and warned of the “threat” of Bloomberg trying to “buy this election” as her supporters booed him.
Meanwhile, her campaign manager, Roger Lau, argued on Twitter Saturday night that both Bloomberg and Sanders have a “significant ceiling” on their support in a still-fluid race.
“Sanders had a good result in Nevada,” he said. “It doesn’t change the state of play for Super Tuesday.”
Biden told his cheering supporters on Saturday that he would win in South Carolina. “We’re alive, and we’re coming back and we’re going to win,” he said.
As Sanders piled up wins at precincts inside casinos up and down the Las Vegas Strip, it seemed clear that he had overcome deep opposition from the leadership of the state’s most powerful union to his marquee proposal, Medicare for All. The Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hotel and restaurant workers in the city, distributed fliers that said Sanders would take away workers’ health care benefits, prompting days of fighting and a barrage of online attacks from his supporters on the union’s leaders.
The union declined to endorse any candidates. But if his reported victories in caucuses at casino caucus sites like the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, and the Wynn were any indication, it appeared rank-and-file workers had broken with their leadership to back him.
“He is the Culinary workers’ candidate,” wrote Jon Ralston, the editor of the Nevada Independent, on Twitter.
Several candidates left Nevada before the results were in, eager to canvass in the next contests of South Carolina and Super Tuesday states.
Sanders fans who appeared at his rally on Friday said they hoped a victory in Nevada could launch him to the nomination, and were keeping a wary eye on signs of opposition to his candidacy.
“If Bernie gets the nomination, if Bernie becomes president," said Doug Johnson, a 66-year-old Las Vegas resident, "that would be a real coup.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot. It is 1,991 delegates.
Follow her on Twitter @lizcgoodwin. Jess Bidgood can be reached at Jess.Bidgood@globe.com. Follow her @jessbidgood.