Live updates: Democrats caucus in Nevada

Updated 4m ago

Sanders leads in initial preference

Bernie Sanders is leading by a large margin in the initial preference of caucus-goers entering the caucus, according to CBS News entrance polls. The rest of the field is behind him. 

Updated 5m ago

Caucusing begins

Caucusing has officially begun in Nevada. First off, voters must self-sort according to their top candidate. 

How long the entire process will take is unclear, and will differ by precinct and site. 

Updated 19m ago

Tom Perez says Nevada is “on pace to set a record” for turnout

DNC chair Tom Perez said the Silver State is “on pace to set a record” for turnout in the state's caucus history.

Perez told reporters in Las Vegas that he's excited to be in Nevada because it's “the first state that has the diversity and scale that is America.”

 

Asked about the role of caucuses in future presidential cycles, Perez pledged to “work hard to make sure we have a conversation as a DNC about the continuing role of caucuses.” He noted as he has in recent days that there were 14 caucus states in 2016 and just 7 in 2020, but you can't “wave a magic wand” to force states into primaries because it requires passage of a state law. He said some GOP governors have refused to support such laws.

 

The value and reliability of caucusing has been called into question after the Iowa caucuses ended in disaster, without any results on caucus day. 

 

But Perez also projected confidence about training for caucus volunteers, saying, “We were training people as late as yesterday. We trained over 1,000 trainings for over 3,000 folks. Folks who didn't feel good, sufficiently trained, we trained them again and again and again, because we understand that we have — we have to make it work.”

— Rebecca Kaplan 

Updated 40m ago

Health care the top issue for Nevada voters, entrance poll shows

Based on early entrance poll results, health care was the top issue on the minds of Nevada caucus voters — more than four in 10 picked it, followed by climate change (roughly a quarter of voters) followed by income inequality and foreign policy. 

About six in 10 caucus-goers polled support replacing all private insurance with a single government plan – similar to support in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

Despite the problems reporting caucus results in Iowa, eight in 10 Nevada Democratic caucus-goers are confident the votes cast in Nevada will be counted correctly.

Updated 48m ago

Nevada governor voices confidence results will come in tonight

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, talked with Caitlin Huey-Burns on CBSN just before the caucuses were to begin.

Asked about whether Nevada would be able to avoid the delays that Iowa experienced, he expressed confidence in the state Democratic party, telling Huey-Burns, “I'm confident they've got a good plan in place,” and ” I'm confident we'll have a result tonight.”

He did note that the weather could be an obstacle — though it's usually pretty dry in Nevada, it's raining today. 

Updated 1:58 PM

“Deficit of volunteers” is delaying start of Nevada Caucus at some sites

A “deficit of volunteers” at some caucus sites is complicating the early hours of Nevada's Democratic caucuses, party leaders told presidential campaigns on Saturday.

Aides to two campaigns tell CBS News that the lack of volunteers to oversee caucuses has occurred at multiple locations, including a location in Pahrump, Nevada, JG Johnson Elementary School, where the precinct chairman did not show up this morning, and participants have yet to be checked in.

Campaigns have been offered the opportunity to provide the state party with the volunteers necessary to run the caucuses, according to the sources familiar with the situation. A similar dearth of volunteers occurred at some early-voting locations over the past week, causing delays for voters.

It is not unheard of for supporters of a specific campaign to act as a caucus chairman or volunteer to help run a caucus, but they likely have not undergone the extensive training needed to understand the new vote tabulation system. These new volunteers also would not have yet taken the required neutrality pledges.

Before Saturday, at least 75,000 Nevadans had participated in the caucus early, nearly as many people who participated in the 2016 caucus.

The Nevada State Democratic Party said Saturday that more than 10,000 Nevadans had registered to vote as Democrats to participate during the four-day early voting period. Previously, the state party had said that the majority of early voters were first-time caucus-goers in Nevada.

— Ed O'Keefe and Alex Tin

Updated 1:07 PM

10,000 more Nevadans registered as Democrats during early voting

The Nevada Democratic Party announced Saturday that 10,000 more people had registered as Democrats during the early voting period from February 15 to 18.

“Over the course of four days of early voting, nearly 75,000 Nevadans turned out to participate in the caucus. Thanks to same-day voter registration, the caucus has already significantly grown the Democratic voter registration advantage over Republicans in Nevada — again — ahead of the 2020 general election,” the party said in a statement.

Updated 1:19 PM

How do the Nevada caucuses work?

The state Democratic Party held early voting, which ended Tuesday, and will be holding caucuses across the state Saturday. Caucus sites are available on the Las Vegas Strip for shift workers, too.

Businesses in Las Vegas employ a large number of Nevada voters, so the so-called “strip caucuses” allow workers who may not be able to make it to a precinct caucus to still participate in a caucus closer to their places of work. Like the traditional caucuses, the strip caucuses will occur on February 22. 

In the traditional caucuses, which will take place in over 250 locations across Nevada, participants will fill out a presidential preference card with their first choice for president. If your first-choice candidate doesn't attract a certain threshold of support from the caucus-goers (which is known as reaching the “viability threshold”), you can “realign,” that is, pick another candidate who already has the minimum support necessary or join other voters to help someone else become viable.  

The early votes will be added to the mix during the first vote tally. After the initial tally, any supporters who received less than a certain threshold for the vote will be eliminated, and voters can shift to different candidates. This is where the ranked-choice voting comes in: for those early voters, the second and third preferences will be taken into account if their first preference falls short of the threshold and is “nonviable.”

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To win delegates, a candidate must meet the viability threshold in the precinct caucuses. For precincts electing four or more delegates, the threshold is 15%. For those electing two delegates, the threshold is 25%. For those electing three delegates, the threshold should be one-sixth of the attendees. 

The Nevada Democratic Party will load raw early vote totals by candidate for each precinct using a secure tabulation method. Precinct chairs will receive iPads that are pre-loaded with the new tool to tabulate the vote. To determine viability in each precinct, the chair will add the total number of in-person attendees to the total number of early vote participants to determine viability.

Updated 1:22 PM

What to watch for in the results

Nevada matters for all the candidates, but it will be key for former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden faltered in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he may need to place high, to prove to African-American voters in South Carolina that he's a sufficiently strong candidate they should support next week. 

A strong first-place finish for Sanders could easily boost him in South Carolina and for Super Tuesday. Bloomberg is not on the ballot in Nevada, since he chose to skip the early-voting states.

Nevada is challenging to poll, so there could easily be some surprises in the mix. 

Updated 1:25 PM

Health care the top concern for Nevada's Culinary Workers Union

Almost 15 percent of workers in Nevada belong to labor unions, making the organizations prominent in state politics. The Nevada Culinary Workers Union, one of the most powerful forces, has 60,000 members — over half of them Latino — and represents most hospitality workers on the Las Vegas Strip. 

Health care is the union's top concern going into the presidential election and the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. Members went on strike for over six years to win enviable health care coverage. Many members worry their health insurance could be threatened by Medicare for All, the single-payer plan that is Bernie Sanders' signature issue. The union has distributed flyers warning that Medicare for All plans would threaten members' current coverage. 

Nevada has one of the worst health care systems in the country, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund. The state was ranked last in the nation for prevention and treatment, and second to last for access and affordability.

Read more about Nevada voters and health care here. 

Updated 1:26 PM

Nevada Democrats to caucus workers: “Don't make early dinner plans”

An organizer for the Nevada Democratic Party advised caucus workers and volunteers during a training call on Tuesday: “Don't make early dinner plans in case things go a bit longer.” The meeting was billed as a “Caucus Refresher Session” webinar for workers, though the registration link was accessible to the public. 

During the training session joined by CBS News, the trainer shared slides detailing the process for tabulating votes on an iPad and submitting results through a phone line. “Never go home and try to mail it,” the trainer advised. “We need these results ASAP.” 

A 177-page presentation included background information about the Nevada caucuses, election-day protocols for precinct workers, and instructions about how to use the caucus calculator, the tool precinct leaders will use to tabulate and report local caucus results.

Read more about the caucus tool here.