Sen. Bernie Sanders is celebrating his Nevada caucus victory hundreds of miles away in Texas.
The Vermont senator took the stage before thousands of cheering supporters inside the Cowboys Dance Hall in San Antonio on Saturday night and declared, “We’re going to win this election.” The country’s second largest state votes on “Super Tuesday” on March 3, after next week’s South Carolina primary, but Sanders wasted little time declaring, “We are going to win here in Texas.”
He added: “We are going to win across the country because the American people are sick and tired of a president who lies all of the time.”
Sanders then modified the standard campaign speech he gives multiple times a day to touch more heavily on immigration for an audience about 150 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. He noted that his father immigrated to the U.S. from Poland "without a nickel in his pocket" and added, "I know something about the immigrant experience. Together we are going to end the demonization” of immigrants.
5:50 p.m.
Amy Klobuchar is telling supporters her presidential campaign has “exceeded expectations” and she plans to carry on, even as she trailed far behind several rivals in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.
The Minnesota senator returned to her home state Saturday following a morning event in Las Vegas. Speaking to volunteers Klobuchar said that "a lot of people didn’t even think I would still be standing at this point."
Klobuchar finished in fifth place in the kickoff Iowa caucuses before a strong debate performance helped lift her to third place in New Hampshire.
She will campaign Sunday in Fargo, North Dakota, before holding events in Arkansas and Oklahoma, both states that will vote in the March 3 “Super Tuesday” contests. On Monday she will be in South Carolina, which holds its primary Saturday and where she will participate in a Tuesday debate.
5:45 p.m.
Joe Biden is declaring himself back into the race for the presidency after early results in Nevada showed the former vice president in second place.
Biden told supporters Saturday that “we're alive and we're coming back and we're gonna win.” Biden thanked unions for their support, citing labor groups that have endorsed him including firefighters, ironworkers and electrical workers.
He took a shot at the race's frontrunner, self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who isn't competing in the first four states but has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his own fortune hoping to pick up delegates starting on Super Tuesday.
"I ain't a socialist. I ain't a plutocrat," Biden said. "I'm a Democrat. And I'm proud of it."
Biden said the Russians will continue to support President Donald Trump and Sanders, whose campaign acknowledged Friday that he was briefed last month by U.S. officials about Russian efforts to boost his candidacy.
"Let's give Trump exactly what he doesn’t want," Biden told his supporters. “Let's give him you and Joe Biden as the nominee.”
3:55 p.m.
Two of the four caucus precincts at a middle school the northern Nevada city of Gardnerville had trouble getting through on the phone hotline to report results.
Kimi Cole, the chair of the Douglas County Democrats who was the site lead at the school, said her precinct and another tried to call the hotline after their caucuses wrapped up early afternoon but instead of being put on hold they were met with a tone that seemed to indicate the number wasn’t working.
“I dialed two or three times, couldn’t get through. My friend dialed, couldn’t get through,” Cole said.
A third person at the caucus site was able to get through and report results right after, but Cole said she and the other precinct leader decided to use one of the Nevada Democratic Party’s backup methods by texting a photo of their caucus reporting worksheets.
Cole said the data was also transmitted by the iPad calculator, which seemed to run smoothly for everyone at that site.
3:45 p.m.
Nevada’s Republican party Saturday awarded all 25 of its delegates to President Donald Trump. The Nevada party had already canceled its caucuses. Instead, the state Republican committee voted by acclimation to give Trump all of its delegates at the same time as Democrats were tallying caucus votes, according to party ex ecutive director Will Sexauer.
No other Republican qualified for the balloting by the state committee, Sexauer said.
This gives Trump 86 of the 87 delegates awarded so far. Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld won one delegate in Iowa. South Carolina, which votes next Saturday, also had canceled its primary. Its delegates will not be bound to any candidate.
3:17 p.m.
Sen. Bernie Sanders was out to an early lead in the Nevada caucuses, capturing 43% of the vote with 3 percent of the state’s 2,097 precincts reporting.
Former Vice President Joe Biden was in second place with 16%, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 12%, Pete Buttigieg with 11%, Tom Steyer with 9% and Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 6%.
2:16 p.m.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden are out to early leads in the Nevada presidential caucuses.
With 53 of 2,097 precincts reporting, Sanders has 55% of the vote, which is the equivalent of 364 delegates, the Associated Press reports.
Biden has nearly 20%, or 129 delegate pledges.
Businessman Tom Steyer (9.8%), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (8.2%) and Pete Buttigieg (5.8%) round out the top 5.
Most caucus locations have closed.
2 p.m.
Bernie Sanders has moved on to Texas, where he addressed about 1,500 supporters in El Paso as the results came in from the Nevada caucuses. Early voting is already underway in Texas, one of the Super Tuesday states holding contests March 3.
Before his El Paso campaign event, Sanders visited a memorial for the victims of the Aug. 3 shooting that left 22 dead and about two dozen injured. That’s according to a local politician who addressed the crowd before Sanders took the stage. Another 2020 contender, Mike Bloomberg, also said he visited the memorial before his rally this month.
1:50 p.m.
At the meeting site at the at the Sierra Vista High School gym, there were no obvious signs of problems with the caucus calculator tool, which was rolled out by the Democratic Party after plans to use an app were scrapped.
Spencer Fier, a precinct chair, said the calculator “worked great” and was helpful in tallying early vote totals.
“Once I got to realigning the early voters, I would’ve had to gone through a packet this thick by hand,” he said, picking up a packet of early vote totals on hand in case the tool didn’t work.
He said he didn’t have any concerns about the tool. “At first I was concerned about security, but it doesn’t actually report anything,” he said.
1:48 p.m.
More than an hour into the caucus at Precinct 1608 at Coronado High School, a supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden started to hand out candy.
“Do you guys want a little sugar?,” they said, as a handful of Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters grabbed a few snacks.
At this precinct, only three candidates reached the required 15% viability threshold: Sanders, Biden and Pete Buttigieg. Sen. Elizabeth Warren picked up eight supporters in person and seven from early votes, but she didn’t make the cut.
Two Warren supporters chose to realign with Sanders and Buttigieg, while the other six remained uncommitted. After that, it was time to add the second choices of nonviable early votes to the total.
As the precinct chair did the math, Biden, who already had the most votes, picked up a couple more supporters. He then had 45, while Buttigieg had 35 and Sanders 33.
The final delegate counts: Biden will get four delegates, while Sanders and Buttigieg will get three each.
1:47 p.m.
After the precincts at Sierra Vista High School determined how many delegates would be awarded to the Democratic candidates for president, supporters of each campaign volunteered as delegates to the county convention.
Alexis Middleton, a supporter of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said the caucus turnout made her proud to keep fighting for her candidate. She will go to the county convention as a delegate in April.
“I think I’m just really proud of our turnout today, and this is kind of the realization of why I’m in this fight,” she said.
Barry Stieb, a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, said he came into the caucus hoping to be a delegate. “I believe that Bernie is the only one that’s going to shake up the system,” he said.
1:45 p.m.
A national co-chair of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign says the Massachusetts senator's finishes in some of the first voting contests are not reasons to count her out. Rep. Ayanna Pressley told The Associated Press on Saturday that Warren's strengths have long been underestimated and that she's unconcerned about prior finishes or poll numbers.
Warren finished third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire. As voters caucused Saturday in Nevada, Pressley said she believed Warren would surprise voters in the states that follow, like South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states.
Pressley is spending several days campaigning for Warren in South Carolina before its primary in a week.
1 p.m.
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won 76 of 123 votes at the Bellagio caucus site, with former Vice President Joe Biden coming in second with 45 votes.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren received six votes and Tom Steyer got three. Upon realignment, most went to Biden.
Of 51 delegates going to the county convention, 32 will be representing Sanders and 19 Biden.
12:54 p.m.
After explaining the process, the precinct chair at Precinct 1608 instructed participants to form groups with fellow supporters for their preferred candidate.
The precinct had 50 participants physically in the room, while 72 others voted early last week. That gives the precinct 122 total participants.
Supporter groups needed 19 people, including early voters, to be viable.
Each group elects an individual to make a pitch for their candidate.
Jacob, a Coronado High School graduate who supports Sen. Bernie Sanders, kicked it off.
“I honestly thought this was a primary,” he said, before making a case for the Vermont senator.
A Pete Buttigieg supporter went next. She said she was a first responder during the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Strip and supported Buttigieg because he understands the importance of gun safety issues.
The designated Joe Biden supporter also cited gun safety as a reason for supporting the former vice president.
“He’ll beat the NRA because he did it twice as vice president,” they said.
12:45 p.m.
Votes are being cast in the Nevada presidential caucuses. It's the first presidential contest in the West and the first to test the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates with black and Latino voters. Altogether, 200 locations are hosting caucuses. Among them are seven casino-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford is a Democrat who's not endorsing a candidate. He says the state “represents an opportunity for these candidates to demonstrate their appeal to a larger swath of our country.” All eyes are on the process after the lead-off Iowa caucuses yielded a muddy result marked by error.
12:40 p.m.
What happens at a Nevada caucus site if two candidates end up in a tie? According to one precinct leader, it comes down to the luck of the draw.
Several hundred voters and about a dozen observers were crowded into a site on the campus of the University of Nevada in Reno when things got underway. The temporary precinct captain, Becky Cohen, explained the process and said everything will be transparent, with results at each stage written on poster boards stuck to the walls.
She closed by holding up a deck of cards and saying, “If there's a tie, God forbid, this is what we do. It's Nevada.”
12:21 p.m.
The caucus at Precinct 1608 was about to begin at 12:15 p.m., 15 minutes behind schedule. The site lead gave instructions to participants about how to caucus, which could take more than an hour.
“Whether or not you like the process, it’s what we have right now,” he said.
The room has supporters for former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.
The site lead reminded everyone to be respectful and asked for a volunteer to sign up as an ambassador for each candidate. All of the camps had already designated an ambassador, except for the Sanders camp.
“Hmm, no leader,” a Biden supporter said jokingly.
Nevada State Democratic Party spokeswoman Molly Forgey said via Twitter that there were an average of eight volunteers per caucus site. That’s about 2,000 volunteers statewide, she noted.
It’s common for volunteers to run the precincts, and that was how it was handled in 2008 and 2016, she said.
12:02 p.m.
Candidate Tom Steyer, who showed up at the Bellagio caucus site, said he hoped to finish either first or second in Nevada. He said he planned to visit multiple caucus sites today to speak to campaign volunteers
11:59 a.m.
Anne Olah, a florist at the Bellagio caucusing on her lunch break, said she decided to back Sen. Elizabeth Warren after her first choice, Sen. Kamala Harris, dropped out of the race.
“I’m so tired of this rich guy in the White House,” Olah said of President Donald Trump. “I drive by people sleeping on the sidewalk every day.”
Olah said health care was most important issue for her and was skeptical of Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his “Medicare for All” proposal.
“I think people who are looking at (Sanders) with rose-colored glasses thinking, ‘We’re going to have health care on the first Monday he’s in office,” they don’t realize what’s the process.”
But if the choice came down to Sanders or Trump, she would support Sanders, she said, noting she would vote for anyone besides Trump.
11:43 a.m.
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg stopped at the caucus site at Sierra Vista High School, saying he felt encouraged as he greeted caucusgoers.
Giti Arshadi, a retiree, and her husband were sporting “Caucus for Pete” buttons, and the candidate stopped to talk with the couple outside of the check-in station. Arshadi said she had no idea Buttigieg would be visiting the site.
She said her daughter has been calling her from Virginia and urging her to vote for Buttigieg. “He has a lot of good ideas,” Arshadi said.
Buttigieg came off with a narrow win in the Iowa caucuses and placed second behind Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary.
Nevada, the first truly diverse state to vote in the nominating contest, is first test of Buttigieg’s appeal to minority voters.
11:40 a.m.
Twenty minutes before the caucus begins, classrooms at Coronado High School are starting to fill up. Some stragglers are still arriving at the caucus site.
A few minutes ago, an unexpected guest showed up: Sen Elizabeth Warren.
Carrying donuts and dressed in sweatpants, the senator greets supporters and volunteers. Everyone who wants one gets a selfie.
“It’s my first caucus, let’s do this!” one supporter says post-selfie.
Addressing supporters and caucusgoers before she leaves, Warren thanks everyone for showing up.
“I’m so glad you’re here this morning,” she says as she shakes hands with a supporter.
10:55 a.m.
Caucusgoers are starting to file into classrooms at Coronado High in Henderson corresponding with their precinct. Volunteers check them in at tables organized by alphabetical order.
“I need A through G, A through G,” one volunteer announces.
Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto stops in for a few minutes to shake the hands of volunteers and caucusgoers. She says she’s feeling confident about the process in Nevada and encouraged by the early voter turnout. She early voted herself, but doesn’t want to share for whom.
“I’m not going to make national news today,” Cortez Masto says.
Mary Jane, a precinct chair for South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg standing outside a classroom, says the process at Coronado is going smoothly so far.
“It was a little confusing at first, but I expected that because there’s so many volunteers,” she says.
Asked why she supports Buttigieg, Mary Jane says he is the most articulate about his policy ideas.
“I like that he’s young. I think we really need to have younger people in the White House,” she adds.
10:45 a.m.
On-shift employees within a 2.5-mile radius of the Strip will have a chance to caucus at seven standalone sites on resort properties.
Voters, including union and non-union workers in all industries, must provide proof of work and sign a disclaimer that they didn’t early vote. The site, organized in conjunction with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, aims to increase voter participation.
Since the Bellagio is a standalone site, there will be no early voting data tabulated into the results, meaning the iPad calculator being used by the Nevada Democratic Party won’t be needed here, a source close to the party said on background.
Bellagio dayshift employees will be allowed to caucus on their lunch break, Union spokeswoman Bethany Khan said. They will be provided lunch boxes and housekeepers will be awarded “credits” for rooms they aren’t able to finish, so they’re not penalized.
Khan couldn’t say how many participants were expected at the site, since it also was an early voting location, but said, “I think it will be exciting still.”
Participants were required to go through metal detectors and a K-9 dog was seen sweeping the Bellagio ballrooms. Volunteers for former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and businessman Tom Steyer were posted outside the site.
10:15 a.m.
At Sierra Vista High, voters Amanda Miller and David McKinney said in line that they were supporting Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and that Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would be their second choice. They moved to Las Vegas in the middle of last year, and said they were excited about the community aspect of caucusing.
McKinney said any bump Warren may have received after a strong performance in Wednesday’s debate could be overshadowed because of all of the Nevadans who early voted. More than 70,000 took part in the four-day early voting window.
Like many voters and party leaders, Miller is optimistic of a smooth process.
“I’m hopeful, but I do see a lot of spaces for potential challenges or problems,” she said.
10:05 a.m.
There are still two hours to go before the Nevada Democratic caucuses at Coronado High School officially begins, but supporters and volunteers are already lining up at this Henderson caucus site. Signs for Sen. Elizabeth Warren dominate the parking lot, while one person’s car is adorned with a sign that reads, “Bernie beats Trump.”
It’s a rare rainy day in Southern Nevada, so everyone is shuffled inside the school.
“Observers to the left, participants to the right,” one volunteer announces.
Yasmeen, a 19-year-old precinct leader Warren, is excited to caucus for the first time at her alma mater. She hopes Warren’s strong debate performance Wednesday will give her a boost.
“As someone who’s a woman in America, as someone whose parents immigrated here, I feel like my representation in government hasn’t been as consistent as it is right now,” she says. “When I see Warren, I see someone who I can relate to.”
It's go time: Nevada Democratic caucuses are here
We have been counting down to this day for months. The Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses are here — finally.
We will soon learn if Sen. Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg continue to lead the field of Democratic candidates vying for the nomination to take on President Donald Trump in the November general election.
There are other possibilities.
Could Nevada be the state where former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Elizabeth Warren become a contender in the race? What about Sen. Amy Klobuchar? Or a longshot candidate like businessman Tom Steyer, who blanketed the Las Vegas Valley with advertising?
More important, how will the caucus go off, especially with heavy rains pouring down in the valley? Ever since there were calculating problems three weeks ago with the Iowa caucuses, the Nevada State Democratic Party has been working nonstop to modify its calculating methods. It was scheduled to use the same app that caused chaos in Iowa.
There’s a massive appetite with voters to have their opinion on who is best to take on Trump. In the four-day early voting period, more than 70,000 ballots were cast. That means the total turnout will easily surpass the 84,000 that participated in the 2016 caucus.
Check-in at all caucus locations is starting.; precinct caucuses will be called to order at noon. Most voters participating in today’s Democratic presidential caucuses must show up at the precinct caucus location that matches the precinct in which they are registered to vote. To find your caucus location, go to caucus.nvdems.com and enter your home address.
We have reporters throughout town following the action. Check back all day for details. The Associated Press contributed to this report.