“Momentum Meets The Wind”: Clinton’s Nevada Win Casts Democratic Race In New Light
The run up to the Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada offered something oddly refreshing: a race in which no one really knew what was going to happen. Most pollsters stayed away, and those who tried found a race in which Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were effectively tied.
As of yesterday morning, no one could say with any confidence who was even favored. But when the dust settled, there was nevertheless a clear winner.
Hillary Clinton won Nevada’s Democratic caucuses on Saturday, NBC News projected, scoring a much-needed boost in the nomination race and depriving rival Bernie Sanders of a victory in a racially diverse state.
The loss is a blow for Sanders, who hoped to use the state’s contest to prove himself as a viable candidate in a state with an electorate made up of more minority voters and fewer self-described liberals than the race’s earlier contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
With just about all of the precincts reporting, it looks like Clinton’s margin of victory was about six points, 53% to 47%. In terms of delegate distribution, it was also fairly close, with Clinton picking up 19 delegates to Sanders’ 15.
But what makes yesterday’s developments so important has less to do with these precise totals and more to do with the impact on the Democratic race overall.
There are two broad angles to keep in mind. The first is the fact that if Clinton had come up short in Nevada, as many observers predicted, the coverage was going to be brutal. The Washington Post ran a piece last week with an ungenerous headline – “Hillary Clinton could blow it in Nevada” – which seemed emblematic of the general media buzz.
Nevada, the conventional wisdom said, was supposed to be a Clinton “firewall” state, which would help the former Secretary of State bounce back after Sanders’ landslide victory in New Hampshire last week. A Sanders victory would have created chatter about a crumbling “firewall” and a renewed sense of panic among Clinton’s supporters in the party.
Her six-point victory does the opposite.
The second angle is that Nevada was a real opportunity for Sanders to change the trajectory of the race. When the Vermont independent nearly tied Clinton in Iowa, and cruised to an easy win in New Hampshire, skeptics noted that the first two states were practically custom made for the senator: Sanders is strongest in states where the universe of Democratic voters is very white and very liberal. Based on previous performance, that means the three best states in the Union for the senator are, in order, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Iowa.
Nevada, therefore, offered Sanders a chance to prove that he can win in a more diverse state – an argument that would give his candidacy renewed credibility as the race goes forward.
Clinton’s win yesterday means that opportunity has come and gone. Conditions may yet change, but she’s favored to do well in South Carolina’s primary next week, and there’s some polling that suggests she’s well positioned to win most of the March 1 primaries soon after.
Sanders said last night that, in the wake of a defeat, his campaign has “momentum” and “the wind is at our backs.” That pitch would have been far easier to believe had he not come up short in a state he fought to win.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 22, 2016
“Clinton Escapes Nevada, Licks Chops For Next Round”: She’s In Great Shape With Friendlier States Ahead
The HUGE UPSET hype machine that’s on stand-by every time election returns come in was being cranked up noisily when the initial entrance polls from today’s Nevada Caucuses were released, showing a dead even race and Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton among Latinos, an important voting demographic in the Silver State and part of Clinton’s nonwhite voter “firewall.” And had the returns stood up to the initial impressions, you might have seen political reporters parachuting into South Carolina this very night to look eagerly for signs that young African-Americans and blue-collar rednecks were feeling the Bern and making the next stop on the nominating contest trail another dicey proposition for the former Secretary of State.
But alas for the dramatics, it looks like Hillary Clinton’s going to win the popular vote by roughly 6 percent and the national delegates awarded by more than that. And while Sanders probably did better among Nevada Latinos than Barack Obama did eight years ago, multiple analysts are suggesting the entrance poll numbers for this demographic showing Clinton losing big may be off, which has certainly happened in the past.
Turnout seems to have been robust, though not as high as in 2008, when the Culinary Workers endorsement of Obama (and Clinton counter-measures) boosted participation in Clark County (Las Vegas); this time that pivotal union was neutral. And putting aside Latinos, the demographic splits in the returns look very, very familiar (again, relying on entrance polls that seem to have underestimated Clinton’s vote): Sanders winning under-30 voters 82/18; Clinton winning over-65 voters 74/24. The non-college educated electorate that seemed to be trending towards Sanders in New Hampshire was dead even here. And however well Sanders ultimately did with Latinos, it’s clear the cavalcade of African-American rappers and writers in his corner isn’t making a lot of progress just yet, with HRC winning that demographic (an estimated 12 percent of the vote here) about three-to-one.
And that’s what may matter most in terms of the road just ahead, with South Carolina (where a solid majority of primary voters will likely be African-American) and 12 March 1 primaries coming up where (with the exception of Texas and Colorado) black voters have more weight than Latinos. If the New Hampshire blow-out shifted the pressure from Sanders to Clinton to show her campaign (not to mention her “firewall”) wasn’t melting down, now the pressure shifts back to Sanders to show he can win in states without big white liberal voting populations.
The best news for Sanders may be, as Nate Silver pointed out today, that later Caucuses are mostly in heavily white states (Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming–only Hawaii is very diverse) where he could, like Obama in 2008, win some serious delegate totals. And if he can duplicate today’s Latino performance–pretty good even if it falls short of a majority–it will eventually help him in states down the road, including Illinois and Florida on March 15. It should be noted that Nevada’s Latino voting population is reportedly youth-heavy, in part because many of their parents aren’t citizens or just aren’t registered or live somewhere else. That may be a dynamic to watch down the road, particularly in states with older Latino voting populations.
All in all, Robby Mook and company can exhale a bit and look forward to some relatively good news the next couple of weeks. The idea that Bernie would burn out after New Hampshire went out the window in the gusher of contributions he harvested after Iowa and then New Hampshire. But it might be awhile before eager journalists write too many more headlines about “panic” in Hillaryland.
By: Ed Kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, New York Magazine, February 20, 2016
“The Sum Of All Fears”: A Signal From America’s Emergency Broadcast System
On the heels of his dominant victory in last night’s South Carolina Republican primary, does anyone still think that Donald Trump’s rise to the GOP nomination can be stopped?
Trump is, for all intents and purposes, already the GOP nominee, a prospect that should unnerve any American who believes in common decency. His conquest of South Carolina was nothing less than a signal from America’s emergency broadcast system: this is only a test of whether rational America will allow fear and fury to flourish over the course of the next four years.
The thought of this man–this embodiment of every dark, demonic force in American history–becoming the 45th President of the United States chills the blood. What does it say about our educational system that this man was not laughed right out of the political system the moment he announced his candidacy?
He talks about what Mexico allegedly sends to the United States. Imagine what a President Trump would send to the rest of the world: a message that racism, sexism, xenophobia and narcissism are virtues, not vices. A message that reason is for the weak. A message that America has fallen into a deep moral abyss.
I’m scared for my friends’ children. They will be of an impressionable age over the next four years. When they see President Donald Trump on the TV screen, what warped values will penetrate their minds? What flawed lessons will they carry with them for the rest of their lives? Will I have to tell my friends not to let their kids watch President Trump, for the same reason one doesn’t let children watch movies with explicit sex, violence and profanity?
What kind of world will those kids inherit? A Trump victory would be far more devastating for our climate than the Keystone XL pipeline would have been. I guarantee that within 24 hours of a Trump victory, China, India and other major polluters will abandon the Paris climate agreement, reasoning that by electing an unrepentant climate-change denier, America cannot possibly be trusted to hold up its end of the deal. Without that deal, you can say goodbye to a livable future–and say hello to more fires, more floods, more disease, more death. (And by the way, Mr. Kasich, if you’re serious about climate, you will not endorse Trump once you suspend your campaign.)
A part of me wants to believe that hope will ultimately conquer fear, that morality will defeat madness, that progressivism will win over revanchism. Another part of me fears that such hope is an illusion, and that on Election Day, a majority of voters, hooked on the opiate of hate, will rush to the polls for their next fix from Donald the Dealer, this pathetic pusher of prejudice.
What would Marvin Gaye say about this, this dark moment in time? What would Nina Simone say? What would Maya Angelou say? Stevie Wonder once sang about finding joy inside his tears. What if, on the night of November 8, there’s no joy to be found?
I have to believe that hope will survive. Maybe that’s my opiate. Maybe I’m addicted to optimism. Nevertheless, I have yet to abandon my view that in the event Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders cannot go the distance in his quest for the nomination, his passionate and enthusiastic supporters will step back, take stock, and set aside whatever grievances they have with Hillary Clinton, concluding that at the end of the day, an alleged “corporatist” cannot threaten democracy and civility the way an actual crackpot can.
Think about what’s at stake. This country is only so resilient. In 1992, America could have survived four more years of Poppy Bush. In 1996, America could have survived four years of President Bob Dole. In 2008, America could have survived four years of President John McCain. In 2012, America could have even survived four years of President Mitt Romney.
Does anyone think this country could survive four days, much less four years, of President Donald Trump?
The progressives currently feuding over the merits of Clinton v. Sanders will lay down their rhetorical arms and embrace each other as brothers and sisters at the conclusion of the Democratic primary. They will unify as the general election approaches, attending to their tasks with the skill and effectiveness of a veteran worker for a suicide prevention hotline. That analogy is apt, because progressives will, in essence, try to stop the country from cutting its own wrist on November 8.
By: D. R. Tucker, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 21, 2016
“A Common Purpose”: Nevada Gives Hillary Clinton A Clear Path To Victory
Hillary Clinton needed a decisive victory in Nevada to put to rest fears that her campaign was in trouble, and it looks like she got it. At this writing, with final results still to come, it appears that she will win by four or five percentage points, basically matching her 2008 win in the state over Barack Obama. With this victory, Clinton has a clear path for pushing aside her too-close win in Iowa and big loss in New Hampshire. She can plausibly argue that Bernie Sanders’s coalition is too narrow—that it is, in particular, too heavily white—to reflect the Democratic Party, which after all is a multi-racial coalition.
And she’s clearly aiming to broaden her own coalition. In her victory speech, Clinton incorporated many of the themes of Sanders’s campaign, emphasizing economic populist messages like student debt. She also made sure to note (a la Sanders) that most of her funding comes from small donors contributing less than $100. And throughout the speech, she repeatedly used the communitarian “we”—a response perhaps to criticism that her campaign has been too much about her leadership and experience, and not enough about common purpose.
If this win is followed by Clinton’s expected victory in next Saturday’s South Carolina primary and the six Southern states of Super Tuesday on March 1, she has a clear path to racking up enough delegates to be the prohibitive front-runner, especially in light of her strong lead among the Democratic super-delegates. The irony is that Clinton might end up making the same argument from delegate math that Obama made in 2008. If Clinton wants to wrap up the primary early, she could soon be in a position to argue that the delegate math overwhelmingly favors her—and Sanders would have to make the same argument that Clinton did in 2008, when Obama took the lead, that every voter needs to be heard from and that he could still conceivably win a majority of votes going forward.
The news isn’t entirely bleak for Sanders. He doesn’t have as clear a path out of Nevada, but he has done better in the state than he could’ve been expected to do even a few weeks ago. By all logic, a state where the demographics trend both older and non-white should have been a bigger Clinton blow-out. Even as the Clinton campaign will likely gather force in the Southern states, Sanders can still make a credible showing in other Super Tuesday states like Colorado, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. In theory, if he does well enough in those states he can make the race tighter again nationally, especially if the inroads he appeared to make among young Latinos in Nevada can be replicated elsewhere.
But just how well Sanders actually did with Latinos in Nevada is murky. Entrance polls showed Sanders winning Latinos, but these results are suspect given the fact that he lost the race. What’s more plausible is that he was at least competitive with Latinos, given the margin of the final vote—heartening for Sanders, but hardly convincing proof that he’s made the breakthrough with non-white voters that he needs.
Ultimately, the harder part for Sanders going forward will be crafting a plausible narrative. Coming out of Nevada, Clinton can reasonably argue that she won in a state that looks much more like the Democratic coalition than largely white states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton has the support of women (although it’s not clear if she won young women in Nevada after losing them in New Hampshire), African-Americans, and Latinos. That is close to the coalition that Obama used to win two elections in a row. The only thing missing from the equation is the enthusiasm of young people, which Sanders still has.
As the challenger, Sanders has the more difficult task of proving that he can both bring in new voters and appeal to loyal Democrats. So far, Sanders has been more successful at the first half of the equation. And unless he can make genuine inroads among African-Americans and improve with Latinos above what he’s achieved in Nevada, it’ll be hard for him to argue that he represents the broader Democratic Party. Even a self-professed revolutionary has to work with the existing party before he or she can expand it. Sanders remains a viable candidate, but coming out of Nevada he faces the bigger burden of forging a winning coalition.
By: Jeet Heer, The New Republic, February 20, 2016
“Flag Remains A Point Of Tension”: Confederate Cavalry Robocalls For Cruz
South Carolina has a solid track record of picking the GOP presidential nominee. But if one conservative group has any say in it, the nation’s first Southern primary won’t be a cakewalk for Donald Trump.
According to the Post and Courier, a last minute robocall released by pro-Ted Cruz forces paints the New York real estate titan as a carpetbagger who does not understand their way of life. Trump currently boasts a sizeable lead in nearly every poll and is expected to trounce his opponents in the Palmetto State primary on Saturday, but candidates like Cruz can still hope to narrow the gap.
Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee released a pre-recorded message that all but accuses Trump of attempting to burn through Dixie like General William Tecumseh Sherman. Alluding to the 2015 fight that brought down the Confederate flag, the caller says, “People like Donald Trump are always butting their noses into other people’s business.”
“People like Trump,” of course meaning people with “New York values” who won’t fight for the brand social conservatism one might find in places like Rock Hill or Bethune. The downing of the Confederate flag remains a point of tension for many who believe it embodies their heritage and who reject the notion that it has racial implications.
“Trump talks about our flag like it’s a social disease,” the voice goes on to say.
Pollsters at fivethirtyeight.com give Trump a 78 percent chance of winning. Cruz comes in at a measly 10 percent and—after winning the Iowa caucus—this may be his last opportunity to prove that his candidacy is viable. Despite his recent rise in national polling, the Texas senator appears to be locked in a race for second with at least five in other candidates in South Carolina, particularly Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The pro-Cruz PAC wants South Carolinians to know that Trump isn’t on their side and that he agreed with removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.
“Put it in a museum, let it go,” the announcer says, parroting Trump.
Bu the truth is there may not be much that can stop Trump at this point. The pro-Cruz robocall feels like a Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter, on a fourth down with four seconds left on the clock.
By: Goldie Taylor, The Daily Beast, February 19, 2016
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