"This was a bad day for Sanders," said David Woodard, a political
scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina. "He needs to find a
way to cut into Clinton's base, and I don't think he is going to find it
here."
After Nevada, Sanders faces struggle to broaden appeal(Reuters)
Bernie Sanders' high-flying Democratic presidential campaign fell back to Earth on Saturday in Nevada.
If the Vermont
senator cannot quickly find a way to broaden his appeal to minorities
and union members, last week's 22-point rout of Clinton in New Hampshire could prove to be his campaign highlight.
The race moves next week to South Carolina,
where blacks make up more than half of the Democratic electorate, and
on March 1 to a string of southern states with big blocs of
African-Americans, who strongly support Clinton and have been slow to
warm to Sanders.
The rush of March contests in
big, diverse states -- Democrats in nearly two dozen states will vote
between March 1 and March 15 -- could leave Sanders grasping for
political life.
"This was a bad day for Sanders," said David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina. "He needs to find a way to cut into Clinton's base, and I don't think he is going to find it here."
Although
Clinton's 5-point win was relatively narrow, it was enough to blunt
Sanders' momentum. Recent voter surveys had shown a tight race in
Nevada, raising the prospect of another damaging setback for Clinton.
Entrance
polls in Nevada showed Clinton trounced Sanders, a self-described
democratic socialist, by 3-to-1 among black voters, and also beat him in
union households by 11 percentage points.
The
enthusiasm of younger and liberal voters who rallied around Sanders'
calls for reining in Wall Street and reducing income equality was not
enough in Nevada to counter Clinton's union and organizational clout,
allowing her to reclaim front-runner status as the race shifts to more
friendly turf.
After the New Hampshire setback,
Clinton's campaign was banking that Sanders would be unable to breach a
so-called "firewall" of Hispanic and African-American support for the
former Secretary of State in southern and western states.
Nevada's result appeared to support that view.
"He's running a strong campaign, but being close is overrated if you can't make the sale," said Mo Elleithee, a Clinton aide in her 2008 campaign and now the executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service.
VICTIM OF SUCCESS
The
Sanders campaign said it was heartened in Nevada by entrance polls
showing he beat Clinton among Hispanics by about eight points.
"What we learned today is Hillary Clinton's firewall with Latino voters is a myth," Arturo Carmona, deputy political director for Bernie 2016, said in a statement.
But
the Clinton campaign questioned those numbers, saying that at one point
she had won 60 percent of the delegates in 22 Latino-majority
precincts.
Clinton's convincing showing in Nevada
could reduce the chances of a late run by an independent candidate such
as former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who would likely scoop up
moderate voters turned off by a socialist nominee.
In
a sense, Sanders was a victim in Nevada of his own success. His ability
to close the gap on Clinton in Iowa and rout her in New Hampshire,
nearly all-white states, raised expectations that he could ride to
another upset in Nevada.
"Nevada put out the Bern," said Ken Tietjen, a Clinton supporter who stood outside her Las Vegas victory rally at Caesar's Palace. "Hillary has all the momentum going forward."
But
Sanders' strong showings in the first three contests, along with his
formidable fundraising, suggest staying power. That could help extend
the Democratic race beyond the cluster of early March contests and into
April and May, when a string of contests in whiter and more liberal
states could help him.
Sanders has money for the
long haul, although Clinton had more on hand at the end of January.
Federal election reports filed as the Nevada results were announced
showed Sanders had raised $21.3 million in January and had $14.7 million
on hand. In January, Hillary raised $13.2 million from individual
donors and had $32.9 million on hand.
Some black
voters said on Saturday they did not see a reason to switch their
loyalty away from Clinton, a fondness that dates back to her husband
Bill Clinton's presidency but which was strained by her bitter primary
battle with Barack Obama in 2008.
Asked who he was
backing, Thomas Anderson, an African-American in Columbia, South
Carolina, said on Saturday: "Hillary, of course."
"She's got more experience. She knows what the country needs," he said, adding "Bernie's a cool guy. I'm down with Bernie too."
Clinton's
embrace of Obama's presidential legacy, and her argument that Sanders
would begin to unravel some of Obama's policies on healthcare and other
issues, also has made an impression.
Darien Gambrell, 23, said she heard Clinton planned to continue a number of Obama's policies.
"I think that's a good thing. I liked some of his ideas, even the ones that didn't seem to work at first," she said, adding she would not want a candidate who would reverse Obama's work.
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