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Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with Clinton’s victory in Nevada.
Vox has the entire victory speech:
You know, I am so, so thrilled and so grateful to all of my supporters out there. Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other. And this one's for you.
I want to congratulate Senator Sanders on a hard-fought race here, and I want to thank each and every one of you. You turned out in every corner of this state with determination and purpose – hotel and casino workers who never wavered, students with too much debt and small business owners who never go off the clock.
Tens of thousands of men and women with kids to raise, bills to pay, and dreams that won't die, this is your campaign, and it is a campaign to break down every barrier that holds you back.
We're going to build ladders of opportunity in their place so every American can go as far as your hard work can take you. And to the thousands of volunteers and organizers who worked so hard in this state, to the more than 750,000 people who have gone to HillaryClinton.com and contributed what you could, the vast majority giving less than $100, and to the millions of people across our country who are supporting our campaign, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
We hear you. We see you. We're incredibly grateful to you. Because we're in this together.
We look at our country and see so much that isn't working the way it should. We see grandparents forced to choose between paying rent and buying medicine because a prescription drug company has increased prices 5,000 percent overnight.
We see African American families denied mortgages at nearly three times the rate of white families. We see small towns and rural communities hollowed out by lost jobs and lost hope. We see a rising generation of young people coming of age in a world where opportunity seems out of reach. And worst of all we see children growing up in poverty or pain or fear.
Here in Nevada, a brave young girl told me how scared she is that her parents could be deported. In South Carolina, I met kids trying to learn in crumbling classrooms and neglected communities. And then there's Flint, Michigan, where children were poisoned by toxic water just because their governor wanted to save a little money.
So Americans are right to be angry. But we're also hungry for real solutions.
In the campaign, you've heard a lot about Washington and Wall Street. We all want to get secret, unaccountable money out of politics. That starts with appointing a new justice to the Supreme Court who will protect the right of every citizen to vote, not every corporation to buy elections.
And we also agree that Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten Main Street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail.
But if we listen to the voices of Flint and Ferguson, if we open our hearts to the families of coal country and indian country, if we listen to the hopes and heartaches of hardworking people across America, it's clear there is so much more to be done.
The truth is, we aren't a single issue country. We need more than a plan for the big banks. The middle class needs a raise. And we need more jobs. We need jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced – jobs that provide dignity and a future.
We can do it by unleashing the innovation of our entrepreneurs and small businesses. We can do it with new investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, and clean energy, especially here in Nevada which should be the center of solar power.
Somebody, some country is going to be the clean energy super power of the 21st century. It's probably either going to be China, Germany or us, and I want it to be us. And it will be when I'm president.
We also have to do more to make it easier for parents to balance work and family and to break down barriers that keep so many people on the sidelines much the economy, especially women. Don't you think we've waited long enough? It's time for equal pay for equal work.
And don't you think it's time to face head-on the problem of systemic racism and invest in communities that have been left out and left behind? That means reforming our criminal justice system, our immigration system, ensuring that people with disabilities have the same opportunity to work and fully participate in our society. It means to make sure that nothing holds you back, not debt, not discrimination, not a deck stacked for those at the top.
Now, no one can get this done alone. Not even the president of the United States. It's got to be the mission of our entire nation. I have never believed in dividing America between us and them. We are all in this together. We all have to do our part.
So let me say this to the men and women who run our country's corporations: If you cheat your employees, exploit consumers, pollute our environment, or rip off taxpayers, we're going to hold you accountable. But if you do the right things, if you invest in your workers, contribute to your communities, help build a better America, we're going to stand with you. We're going to go into the future together. We need more jobs. We need more opportunity.
And I want to say this to all the young people out there. I know what you're up against. If you left college with a ton of loans, it's not enough just to make college more affordable. You need help right now with the debt you already have. That's why I have a plan to cut your interest rates and cap payments so you never have to pay more than you can afford.
But I want you to think about this. It can't be just about what we're going to give to you. It has to be about we're going to build together. Your generation is the most tolerant and connected our country has ever seen.
In the days ahead, we will propose new ways for more Americans to get involved in national service and give back to our communities because every one of us has a role to play in building the future we want. Washington is never going to have all the answers, but for every problem we face somewhere someone in America is solving it.
And we need you to be part of that exciting journey we can make together. We need the community activists who decide to run for school board, the entrepreneur who stays and builds instead of leaving a hometown that has seen better days. We need the millions of teachers and nurses, police officers and firefighters who get up every day and do quiet, heroic work to make our country a safer, fairer, better place.
It's going to take each of us working together, growing together, looking out for one another, and lifting each other up. Because there is a basic truth about America. It's something that Bill and I have been the beneficiaries of, that we have tried to contribute to and do all we could to continue. America can only live up to its potential when each and every American has the chance to live up to your potential, too.
So imagine a tomorrow where no child grows up in the shadow of discrimination or under the specter of deportation. And every child in every zip code gets the education he or she needs and deserves. Imagine a tomorrow where every parent can find a good job and every grandparent can enjoy a secure retirement. Where small businesses thrive and big businesses play by the rules and give more back to the country that has given them so much, where hard work is honored, families are supported, and communities are strong.
With your help, that is the tomorrow we will build for our country. So please join us. Go to Hillary clinton.com, become a part of this campaign, or text join 47246 right now. Let's do this together. Now I am heading on -- I am on my way to Texas.
I'm on my way to Texas. Bill is on his way to Colorado. The fight goes on! The future that we want is within our grasp! Thank you all! God bless you!
And here’s some post-caucus coverage.
The Boston Globe reports:
Hillary Clinton fought off a surge by Bernie Sanders and won the Nevada caucuses Saturday, a display of organizational muscle and support from a racially diverse electorate that put her candidacy back on solid footing as she looks forward in coming days to campaigning in friendlier Southern states.
Clinton secured 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for Sanders, with nearly 90 percent of precincts reporting. As news spread that Clinton was the projected winner, the crowd gathered at her victory party in a ballroom at the Caesars Palace hotel began chanting “I’m with her! I’m with her!”
The definitive victory in a state where Sanders’ support grew rapidly in recent weeks should reassure Democrats that Clinton’s campaign is capable of adjusting to adverse conditions and grinding out a victory. It was a crucial rebound for the former secretary of state after Sanders nearly beat her in Iowa and trounced her in New Hampshire earlier in the month.
For Sanders, the loss renews questions about whether he can expand his base of support beyond the mostly white liberals who have fueled his candidacy so far. He will continue to compete in the nomination contest because of his prodigious fund-raising and the strength of his anti-Wall Street message, but a failure to attract minority voters could limit how far his campaign can go.
Mashable reports:
Though polling is notoriously difficult in Nevada, Clinton's significant lead in the ethnically diverse state had all but vanished in the days leading up to the caucuses.
Still, Clark County — which includes the iconic Las Vegas Strip — came in strong for Clinton, helping her pull out a victory.
At Caesar’s Palace, where workers could take time off work to caucus, Clinton won with 190 votes to Sanders’ 81 — largely thanks to Latina women who skewed older.
Other areas in the strip provided Clinton with equally strong margins.
"She wants to be equal for the women, which is good," said Abby Taclibon, a 32-year-old first-time caucus-goer and Filipino immigrant who chose Clinton in the caucus.
That was the sentiment of a number of immigrant women Mashable spoke with outside the Caesar's Palace caucus location.
"I think Hillary stands up for us, I need it," said Ophelia Sanchez, a Latina immigrant who took time off her shift at the Bellagio to caucus for Clinton.
Nevada was an important win for Clinton, suggesting that ultimately Sanders was unable to siphon support from her among minority voters.
And now with two primary wins under her belt, the delegate math is squarely in her favor as the nominating contest heads to the south — where African-American voters, who overwhelmingly favor Clinton's bid, make up a large portion of the electorate.
FiveThirtyEight reports:
The Democratic contest moved to a not-totally-white contest, and Hillary Clinton had her best showing yet. She won the Nevada caucuses by over 5 percentage points, an important margin in a state whose electorate was only 59 percent white. While there are still some questions about how Latinos voted, Clinton can claim tremendous support from black voters heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.
According to the entrance poll in Nevada, Clinton won black voters 76 percent to 22 percent. To put that in context, Clinton’s margin is only slightly smaller than Barack Obama’s 83 percent to 14 percent win with black voters in the 2008 Nevada caucuses. While the result wasn’t unexpected given that pre-election polls showed Clinton dominant with black voters, Sanders spent a lot of money on television in the state. That Sanders couldn’t close the gap with black voters with a big advertising push is a very ominous sign for his campaign.
Many of the upcoming primaries will feature a much higher percentage of black voters than Nevada did. While only 13 percent of Nevada caucus-goers in 2016 were black, their share in South Carolina will be much higher (55 percent of South Carolina Democratic primary voters were black in 2008). That’s why Clinton is up by 25 percentage points in the South Carolina polls. Even beyond South Carolina, on Super Tuesday 63 percent of the delegates up for grabs will be in contests with a higher share of African-Americans than Nevada. Better yet for Clinton, 35 percent of delegates will be up for grabs in contests with at least double the share of African-Americans as Nevada. In 2008, 19 percent of voters in all Democratic primaries were black — Clinton’s margin among black voters is a big advantage.
That’s not to say Nevada was all bad news for Sanders. Sanders has cut into Clinton’s advantage with Latino voters. In the 2008 Nevada caucuses, Clinton won Latinos 64 percent to 26 percent. This year, the entrance poll had Sanders winning Latinos 53 percent to 45 percent. I’m a bit skeptical of those numbers, however, given that Clinton won in heavily Latino precincts in Las Vegas. The sample of Latino voters in the entrance poll was very small, a couple hundred respondents at most, so it’s possible those numbers are just off. (That said, David Shor of Civis Analytics argued that it is possible that Sanders won Latinos even as he did poorly in Latino neighborhoods because many younger Latinos — who are more likely to support Sanders — live in whiter neighborhoods.)
The Nation reports:
They don’t call it Hillary Country for nothing. After a spirited contest that grew tighter in the weeks leading up to Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, Clinton’s early and deep investments in the Silver State paid off to give her her first solid victory of the 2016 presidential primaries. Clinton won the Saturday caucuses by a five-point lead over Bernie Sanders.
In the end, Clinton took away 19 delegates to Sanders’s 14 by winning key caucus sites, including Latino-heavy precincts on the east side of Las Vegas. The Clinton campaign also won all six of Nevada’s special at-large caucus sites set up at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip for the hotel and casino workers who, along with other hospitality workers, make up the backbone of Nevada’s workforce.
Clinton’s volunteer, organizing, and even lawn-sign and sticker advantage over Bernie Sanders was apparent Saturday morning at three caucus locations in North Las Vegas, a city that’s more than a quarter Latino. At Desert Pines High School, two dozen Hillary volunteers and supporters in blue Hillary shirts gathered for an early firing-up at 10 am. Among the smattering of early-bird caucus goers who waited in the sharp morning sun was Mamo Woldegiorsis, 60, and his wife Timitu Siyoum, 53, who said the two immigrated from East Africa 30 years ago. “He’s a nice guy, the other guy, but I choose Hillary,” Woldegiorsis said. His wife concurred. There was not a Bernie Sanders supporter or volunteer at the school an hour before caucusing got under way.
Forty minutes before the doors were set to open, Clemencia Morales stood fourth in line to register to caucus. “I had been registered Republican, but I said I want to switch to Democrat and they told me to get here early,” Morales, a 55-year-old grandmother of two who has lived in the United States for 28 years but only became naturalized just last year. She waited in line holding a door sign that Bernie Sanders canvassers had left at her home, and a postcard she’d received from the campaign.
“In my heart, though, I want Hillary. She has a lot of trajectory and history.” She credited her coming out to caucus to the Sanders campaign, though. “They’re the only one who contacted me. That surprised me,” she said. “They’re real interested in me and my people, that’s why I’m here.”
New York Times reports:
Nevada is fairly representative of the national electorate, and it’s a state where Bernie Sanders would be expected to fare slightly better than he would elsewhere. (The Nevada Democratic electorate is about as white as the national average, with a slightly smaller share of the black vote than the national average.)
Mr. Sanders’s supporters will undoubtedly protest this framing. Their candidate exceeded the expectations of a month ago, and he fared better among Hispanic voters than many would have guessed. Mrs. Clinton’s lead is only 5.5 percentage points with 95 percent of precincts reporting.
But judging Mr. Sanders merely by whether he makes life tough for Mrs. Clinton diminishes his candidacy. It assumes that he’s just a protest candidate who should be judged by a lower standard. If he is taken seriously, and judged by whether he’s on a path to the nomination, then his performance today fell short.
Mrs. Clinton won by carrying Las Vegas’s Clark County — the most diverse in the state — by a 10-point margin. She won the majority Hispanic precincts in East Las Vegas, calling into question the entrance-exit poll finding that Mr. Sanders won the Hispanic vote.
More generally, the entrance-exit poll showed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders in a virtually tied race, so we know that the poll understated Mrs. Clinton’s support somewhere.
The results by precinct also indicate that Mrs. Clinton fared extremely well among black voters. In six precincts identified as majority black by The Upshot, Mrs. Clinton won the delegate count by a staggering 96-7. The entrance-exit poll showed her with a 76-22 percentage advantage among African-Americans.
It bodes well for Mrs. Clinton in the South, starting with South Carolina next weekend.
Nevada was the third straight state where, because of demographics, one would have expected Mr. Sanders to fare better than the national average. In terms of the Democratic primary electorate, the black voter share in the state is below the national average. If African-Americans are the principal source of Mrs. Clinton’s national advantage, as her strength with them today and her modest showing among Hispanic voters suggest, then she should be expected to fare better elsewhere.
Vox reports:
She did so thanks largely to her strength in Clark County — the home of Las Vegas, and the most heavily Latino part of the state.
That's important to note, because entrance polls showed Bernie Sanders winning among Latino voters — by a shockingly wide margin.
An early wave of entrance polling showed Sanders beating Clinton by 11 points with Latinos. A later wave showed him winning by 8.
What really happened? We might not ever know for sure. But if you look at the possible scenarios — and at the entrance and exit polls' record with Latinos — the most plausible conclusion is that the entrance polls didn't correctly predict Nevada's Latino vote.
Official voting results don't break down votes by race, so we can't match up the real outcome in Nevada up against the entrance polls. (They're entrance polls because in caucus states, voters are polled on their way into the caucus, rather than on their way out of the voting booth.)
But what we do know of the official voting results — broken down by caucus site and by region — indicates that Hillary Clinton won the parts of Nevada that are most heavily Latino.
The most heavily Latino county in the state — Clark County — was Clinton's stronghold. With two-thirds of its precincts reporting, Clinton had a 10-point margin over Sanders — much wider than either candidates' margin of victory elsewhere in the state.
Sanders not only outspent Clinton in January, but also entered the month with much less cash on hand.
Politico reports:
The Vermont senator's campaign dropped $34.9 million last month, $15 million more than Clinton spent, but also $13.6 million more than his campaign brought in.
The revelation of his spending spree helps demystify Sanders' surging candidacy, with close finishes in Iowa and Nevada and a crushing win in New Hampshire. And it means he had less than half as much cash left as Clinton right before the first votes were cast.
Interesting piece from the New York Times about sexism at the office:
More time in a sexist world, and particularly in the workplace, radicalizes women.
Radicalism isn’t expressed only by supporting a socialist; it can also take the shape of women, increasingly disillusioned by a biased culture, throwing their weight behind someone who shares both their political views and their experiences.
It’s not that young women aren’t feminists, or don’t care about sexism. For college-age women — Mr. Sanders’s female base — sexism tends to be linked to sex. Young women see their clothing choices policed as being too “sexy,” their birth-control options determined by their university or their boss, their right to abortion debated, sexual assault rampant and often badly dealt with on campuses.
In response, they are taking action. They are abortion-clinic escorts, they are reforming campus policies on assault and for transgender students, they are leading the Black Lives Matter movement. Young women are neither ungrateful to their feminist foremothers nor complacent; rather, they are activists for feminist causes that reflect their needs.
By 35, those same college-educated women are making 15 percent less than their male peers. Women’s earnings peak between ages 35 and 44 and then plateau, while men’s continue to rise.
What starts out as a near 50-50 professional split among new lawyers, for example, becomes a big gap: Women are just 17 percent of equity partners at law firms generally, according to the National Association of Women Lawyers.
When women have children, they’re penalized: They’re considered less competent, they’re less likely to be hired for a new job and they’re paid less. For men, having a child helps in hiring and pay. For many families, it starts to “just make sense” for the husband to take on the role of primary breadwinner while the wife drops out of the labor force, compromising future earnings when she tries to go back to work.
“You realize how many women are left standing as you age, and what happens to your brilliant and talented friends and colleagues from your 20s and 30s,” said Heather Boushey, the executive director and chief economist for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, who has provided advice to the Clinton campaign. “These are tough lessons, and ones that you may not think are as pressing until you actually see them happen to your own friends and cohorts.”
Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.