Hillary Clinton, winning women, takes Nevada in victory over Sanders.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucuses in Nevada, where she campaigned actively to secure a victory. (Photo: John Locher/AP)

Hillary Clinton beat out rival Bernie Sanders to win the Nevada caucuses after a frenetic final blitz of campaigning, denying Sanders a golden opportunity to capitalize on his early momentum and raising questions about where else he can win in the weeks ahead.

“Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other,” Clinton said at her victory party in the Caesars Palace casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Clinton went on to outline the problems facing the country, from “crumbling classes” in South Carolina to the toxic water in Flint, Mich. “Americans are right to be angry,” she said. “But we’re also hungry for real solutions.”

Sanders outspent Clinton 2 to 1 on TV ads in the state, and managed to build up his campaign operation to rival hers in size. But Team Clinton, which had been in the state since April under the direction of Barack Obama campaign alum Emmy Ruiz, was better organized. Clinton’s female-focused outreach strategy in Nevada paid off, with exit polls showing Clinton winning among women by 16 percentage points, reversing the embarrassing New Hampshire trend of women choosing Sanders. Clinton once led the state by large margins, but a poll last week showed she and Sanders in a dead heat. The former secretary of state canceled a campaign rally in Florida this week and spent an extra day campaigning in Nevada.

Her high-profile surrogates, including actress Eva Longoria and Cabinet member Tom Perez, flooded the state and held multiple events every day, out-campaigning Sanders’ team.

“We knew that the race was going to be tight, and we wanted to make sure that we left nothing on the field,” said Jorge Neri, Clinton’s Nevada field organizer.

Female voters who flocked to a casino caucus site Saturday morning said they liked Sanders but ultimately sided with Clinton, in part because they believed she would understand their issues better than Sanders.

“First of all, she’s a woman; she will understand a woman’s needs,” said Fernanda Breciado, 55, a housekeeping supervisor at Caesars Palace who was voting during her lunch break. “She has the support of the greatest president,” she added, referring to Bill Clinton.

Jennifer Palmieri, a Clinton spokeswoman, said Hillary’s performance with women was good news. “It’s one state, it’s one race, but that’s pretty good,” she said. “We understand we have work to do with white men.”

The state brought out tension between the two candidates. On Thursday, an exhausted-looking Sanders and Clinton crossed paths at a town hall focused on immigration issues in Las Vegas. Clinton took a poke at Sanders’ earlier criticism of Obama and her husband. “Maybe it’s that Sen. Sanders wasn’t really a Democrat until he decided to run for president. He doesn’t know what the last two Democratic presidents did,” she said as the crowd booed. In an interview with BET later, Sanders suggested Clinton was heaping praise on Obama merely to pander to black voters.




Culled from Yahoo News.
Liz Goodwin, Andrew Romano and Daniel Klaidman.