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 If the Vermont senator cannot quickly find a way to broaden his
appeal to minorities and union members, last week's 22-point rout of
Clinton in New Hampshire could prove to be his campaign highlight.
The race moves next week to South Carolina, where blacks make up
more than half of the Democratic electorate, and on March 1 to a
string of southern states with big blocs of African-Americans, who
strongly support Clinton and have been slow to warm to Sanders.
The rush of March contests in big, diverse states -- Democrats in
nearly two dozen states will vote between March 1 and March 15 --
could leave Sanders grasping for political life.
"This was a bad day for Sanders," said David Woodard, a political
scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina. "He needs to find
a way to cut into Clinton's base, and I don't think he is going to
find it here."
Although Clinton's 5-point win was relatively narrow, it was enough
to blunt Sanders' momentum. Recent voter surveys had shown a tight
race in Nevada, raising the prospect of another damaging setback for
Clinton.
 Entrance polls in Nevada showed Clinton trounced Sanders, a
self-described democratic socialist, by 3-to-1 among black voters,
and also beat him in union households by 11 percentage points.
The enthusiasm of younger and liberal voters who rallied around
Sanders' calls for reining in Wall Street and reducing income
equality was not enough in Nevada to counter Clinton's union and
organizational clout, allowing her to reclaim front-runner status as
the race shifts to more friendly turf.
After the New Hampshire setback, Clinton's campaign was banking that
Sanders would be unable to breach a so-called "firewall" of Hispanic
and African-American support for the former Secretary of State in
southern and western states.
Nevada's result appeared to support that view.
"He's running a strong campaign, but being close is overrated if you
can't make the sale," said Mo Elleithee, a Clinton aide in her 2008
campaign and now the executive director of the Georgetown Institute
of Politics and Public Service.
VICTIM OF SUCCESS
The Sanders campaign said it was heartened in Nevada by entrance
polls showing he beat Clinton among Hispanics by about eight points.
"What we learned today is Hillary Clinton's firewall with Latino
voters is a myth," Arturo Carmona, deputy political director for
Bernie 2016, said in a statement.
But the Clinton campaign questioned those numbers, saying that at
one point she had won 60 percent of the delegates in 22
Latino-majority precincts.
Clinton's convincing showing in Nevada could reduce the chances of a
late run by an independent candidate such as former New York mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who would likely scoop up moderate voters turned
off by a socialist nominee.
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In a sense, Sanders was a victim in Nevada of his own success. His
ability to close the gap on Clinton in Iowa and rout her in New
Hampshire, nearly all-white states, raised expectations that he
could ride to another upset in Nevada.
"Nevada put out the Bern," said Ken Tietjen, a Clinton supporter who
stood outside her Las Vegas victory rally at Caesar's Palace.
"Hillary has all the momentum going forward."
But Sanders' strong showings in the first three contests, along with
his formidable fundraising, suggest staying power. That could help
extend the Democratic race beyond the cluster of early March
contests and into April and May, when a string of contests in whiter
and more liberal states could help him.
Sanders has money for the long haul, although Clinton had more on
hand at the end of January. Federal election reports filed as the
Nevada results were announced showed Sanders had raised $21.3
million in January and had $14.7 million on hand. In January,
Hillary raised $13.2 million from individual donors and had $32.9
million on hand.
Some black voters said on Saturday they did not see a reason to
switch their loyalty away from Clinton, a fondness that dates back
to her husband Bill Clinton's presidency but which was strained by
her bitter primary battle with Barack Obama in 2008.
Asked who he was backing, Thomas Anderson, an African-American in
Columbia, South Carolina, said on Saturday: "Hillary, of course."
"She's got more experience. She knows what the country needs," he
said, adding "Bernie's a cool guy. I'm down with Bernie too."
Clinton's embrace of Obama's presidential legacy, and her argument
that Sanders would begin to unravel some of Obama's policies on
healthcare and other issues, also has made an impression.
Darien Gambrell, 23, said she heard Clinton planned to continue a
number of Obama's policies.
"I think that's a good thing. I liked some of his ideas, even the
ones that didn't seem to work at first," she said, adding she would
not want a candidate who would reverse Obama's work.
(Additional reporting by Luciana Lopez and Jane Ross in Nevada,
Emily Flitter and Steve Holland in South Carolina, Michelle Conlin
in New York, Amanda Becker in Washington; Editing by Stuart
Grudgings)
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