2020 Nevada Democratic Caucuses

The 2020 Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses took place on February 22, 2020, with early voting on February 14–18, and was the third nominating contest in the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election, following the New Hampshire primary the week before. The Nevada caucuses were a closed caucus, meaning that only registered Democrats could vote in this caucus. The state awarded 49 delegates towards the national convention, of which 36 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the caucuses.

Senator Bernie Sanders won the caucuses with 46.8% of county convention delegates (CCDs) and 40.5% of the final popular vote alignment by a substantial margin, with former vice president Joe Biden coming in second and former mayor Pete Buttigieg in third; senator Elizabeth Warren was not able to cross the 15% vote threshold. This was the third presidential nominating contest in a row that Sanders topped the popular vote in, after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Of the 104,883 votes, more than 70,000 were cast early with ranked choice voting ballots.

Procedure

Caucus votes were initially slated to be counted on the Shadow app that caused significant problems during the counting of 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses. As a consequence of those difficulties, the caucuses instead used Google Forms running on 2,000 iPads to send in results. Some volunteers believed there was a lack of training on the iPads, which could result in malfunctions. Early voting for the caucuses took place from February 15 to 18. In addition to Google Forms, early voters filled out a paper ballot that required them to rank candidates according to preference. Early voting ballots were only counted if voters ranked at least three candidates, and were transmitted to voter's home precincts to be counted alongside election day votes.

Precinct caucuses were held starting at 10:00 a.m. local time ( PST), with voting starting at noon on February 22. In the closed caucuses, candidates had to meet a 15% viability threshold within an individual precinct in order to be considered viable and 15% at the congressional district or statewide level to win delegates, with supporters of non-viable candidates at precinct caucuses then allowed to support one of the remaining viable candidates. Of the 36 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, 23 were allocated on the basis of the district results made up of the precinct caucuses, with between 5 and 6 allocated to each of the state's four congressional districts. In the same step the precinct caucuses also elected delegates to county conventions based on the results of the vote in each precinct. Of the remaining 13 pledged delegates, 5 were allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates) in addition to 8 at-large delegates, and these were distributed proportionally based on the number of county delegates for presidential contenders.

The county conventions were planned for April 18, 2020, to choose delegates for the state convention. On May 30, 2020, the state convention met to vote on the 36 pledged delegates for the Democratic National Convention. The delegation also included 13 unpledged PLEO delegates: 6 members of the Democratic National Committee, 5 members of Congress (both senators and 3 representatives), the governor Steve Sisolak, and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. This meant that presumptive nominee Joe Biden together with the delegates he received from Buttigieg was able to get 25 votes on the national convention, one more than Sander's 24.

On March 20, 2019, the Nevada Democratic Party had released its 2020 delegate selection plan, introducing four days for early voting from February 15 to 18, 2020, and, like the Iowa caucuses, "virtual caucuses" on February 16 and 17 to allow those unable to physically attend to vote in addition to releasing raw vote totals. In both cases, caucusgoers' ranked presidential preferences would be sent to their precinct and counted on the day of the physical caucus, but in late August 2019, the Democratic National Committee ordered both the Iowa and Nevada Democratic state parties to scrap their plans for "virtual caucuses" because of security concerns. After county conventions following the previous caucuses had left open the risk of a candidate winning a majority of delegates at the state conventions despite trailing among district delegates, even all unpledged delegates had to be allocated on the basis of the results of the precinct caucuses on February 22.

Candidates

In order to get on the "caucus preference card" (ballot), candidates had to file with the State committee and pay a $2,500 fee by New Year's Day 2020. The following candidates qualified:

* Joe Biden
*Pete Buttigieg
* Tulsi Gabbard
*Amy Klobuchar
*Bernie Sanders
* Tom Steyer
* Elizabeth Warren
*Michael Bennet (withdrawn)
*Deval Patrick (withdrawn)
* Andrew Yang (withdrawn)

Cory Booker, John Delaney and Marianne Williamson were accepted onto the ballot, but withdrew soon enough that they did not appear on it. Although Delaney had not been on the ballot, he received one vote in the first caucus alignment. There was also an uncommitted option on the ballot.

Campaign

Twenty-three candidates visited the state during 2019. The largest event of that year was the November 17 "First in the West" " cattle call", which was attended by fourteen candidates.

For a second caucus in a row, the Culinary Workers Union declined to endorse a candidate. This came after it circulated a flyer among members criticizing Sanders and Warren's support for single-payer healthcare, which it argued would leave members with worse benefits. The ''Las Vegas Sun'' endorsed both Klobuchar and Biden, saying that they think nominating Sanders "guarantees a Trump second term."

The following was spent on television advertising:
*Tom Steyer: $13.55 million
*Bernie Sanders: $1.54 million
*Elizabeth Warren: $1.51 million
*Pete Buttigieg: $1.26 million
*Joe Biden: $1.16 million
*Amy Klobuchar: $838,740

Even though the Republican caucus had been canceled, President Trump held several campaign events in Nevada.

February 14–18 primary

With encouragement from the remaining campaigns, the five-day early voting began on February 14. Hundreds of polling places were open throughout the state, with candidate events taking place near to them. Turnout was large, with close to 12,000 showing up the first day and greater numbers over the weekend, February 15–16. It was estimated that up to 60% of all participants would vote early and 77,000 voters took the opportunity to do so. As approximately 84,000 voters voted in the caucus in 2016, and approximately 110,000 voters voted in 2008, this put the trajectory for voter turn out in the 2020 caucus above 2016 and near 2008.

Early voters who did not fill out at least a first-choice, second-choice and third-choice ballot oval would not have their votes counted, creating concerns of lost votes, but this rule ultimately affected few voters.

February 19–22 caucus

With the early voting phase over, the ninth official debate between the candidates on the ballot took place on February 19. Steyer, who was in double digits in several polls in Nevada, did not qualify for the debate, while Michael Bloomberg, who was not on the ballot, did.

The doors opened for the caucus at 9 AM PST and the caucus itself an hour later. There was controversy about the NDAs that the people working at the caucuses were made to sign. Nevada State Democratic Party Chairman William McCurdy stated that signing the non-disclosure agreements was voluntary, but this was disputed. Several people quit rather than doing so.

Polling

Results

Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses, with Joe Biden coming in second and Pete Buttigieg in third.

Delay

Similarly to the Iowa caucus, there were some controversies surrounding the outcome of the caucus. One day after voting, with forty percent of the precincts not reported, Pete Buttigieg questioned the results citing more than "200 reports of problems merging the early votes". Full set of results were published two days after the caucus.

Reports of "confusion, calculation glitches and delays in reporting" emerged once again, bringing into question the future of caucuses, with former Nevada Senator Harry Reid calling for Nevada to switch to a primary system.

Analysis

Participation in the 2020 caucuses (105,195 initial alignment votes in the official count) was 25% higher compared to the approximately 84,000 people who participated in the 2016 caucuses, but 4% less compared to the approximately 110,000 voters who participated in the 2008 caucuses.

Entrance polls by CNN indicated that Sanders won nearly every gender, race, age, and education demographic group, except for African-Americans and voters over 65, where Biden won 38–28 and 29–12 respectively. He performed extremely well among younger voters, capturing 65% of voters in the 17–29 demographic and 56% of voters under 45 overall, showcasing his overwhelming strength with the youth vote. In terms of ideological preference, Sanders won handily among voters who identified as liberal (50%) and somewhat liberal (29%), whereas Biden won over moderate voters (25%). Sanders also won the state's population center of Clark County, which constituted 70% of all caucusgoers, with 49% of the vote. In a break with Culinary Workers Union leadership who had previously come out against Sanders's Medicare for All plan, Sanders won several caucus precincts along the Las Vegas Strip, home to many hotel and casino workers who are members of the union.

Sanders's landslide victory has been attributed in part to his intentional outreach to Latino communities coordinated by staff member Chuck Rocha, resulting in winning 53% of Latino voters, who make up about 30% of Nevada's population. Under Rocha's direction, the Sanders campaign focused heavily on mobilizing Latino voters, a historically low-turnout demographic group, by hiring 76 Latino staffers and spending over $3 million on Spanish-language advertising specifically crafted to cater to Latino issues in the Silver State.

Sanders's substantial margin of victory in Nevada, the first early state with a diverse electorate, helped ease concerns that his campaign had limited appeal among voters of color, as was the case in 2016. These concerns would arise again for Sanders when Joe Biden went on to win South Carolina, a state where 60% of the Democratic electorate is African-American, by a large margin.

For Biden, his distant second-place finish in Nevada helped allay fears of a faltering campaign after two underwhelming results in Iowa and New Hampshire. With South Carolina being the next state to hold a primary, it would be this state that would make or break his campaign – or one that would cement Bernie Sanders' status as a frontrunner.

Notes

References

External links

''The Green Papers'' delegate allocation summaryNevada Democratic Party draft delegate selection planFiveThirtyEight Nevada caucus poll tracker''The Nevada Independent'' Nevada candidate tracker

{{2020 Democratic primaries

Nevada Democratic
Democratic primary
2020