Second-place finish for Sanders in Nevada slows his momentum

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.

A dozen states will go the polls on March 1 in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, many of them in the South with large black populations.

While Sanders was campaigning in SC on Sunday, he planned to be in MA for a college rally and campaign in Norfolk, Virginia, on Tuesday. “This was a bad day for Sanders”, said David Woodard, a political scientist at Clemson University in SC. “I think we did well with working class people”, he said yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

In a Fox News poll shortly before the Iowa caucus, Clinton only led by 12 points over Sanders.

The Republican candidates are now shifting their attention to Nevada, and the most recent polling shows that the race is not almost as tight as the Clinton-Sanders battle.

“I’m very hopeful. And we will continue to work hard to make that case and to win over as many voters as possible to get the nomination”, Clinton said yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union.

With strong support from black voters, Clinton won the caucuses with close to 53% of the vote compared to Sanders’ 47%.

Meanwhile, Clinton has a historical base of support in Nevada’s Hispanic community.

Sanders also noted the former secretary of state’s superior campaign infrastructure in state, buoyed by her experience running in 2008.

“We’re studying that issue very closely, obviously, as to where we allocate our resources and allocate my time”, Sanders said. “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.

Sanders said in a statement Saturday that he congratulated Clinton on her victory. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the thing to watch in Nevada will be who wins second place after a near tie for the spot in SC between Cruz and Rubio. Mrs. Clinton considered Nevada a safer state for her campaign than the mostly white electorates of New Hampshire and Iowa.

“Nevada put out the Bern”, said Ken Tietjen, a Clinton supporter who stood outside her Las Vegas victory rally at Caesar’s Palace.

Sanders is “not going to have the luxury moving forward of having weeks and weeks to organise”, Damore said. 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.

Thirty-four chose Clinton. Twenty-four chose Sanders.

Sanders has said that he will not “politicize” the investigations. In January, Hillary raised $13.2 million from individual donors and had $32.9 million on hand.

“Frankly, if she gets indicted, that’s the only way she’s going to be stopped”. “And we know what that’s about. I’m down with Bernie too”. It’s one that Clinton has been able to neither neutralize nor fully appropriate as her own, although she recently has stepped up her rhetoric against Wall Street.

“I think that’s a question that people are trying to sort through”.

Fox News recently reported that the FBI is investigating not just Clinton’s use of a private email server, but also “whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws”.