Last night at the Clark County Democratic Convention, thousands of delegates showed up to cast their preference and represent their precinct. Well, a funny thing happened along the way that decided who won the Feb. 20 Nevada Presidential Caucus for the Democratic Presidential Primary in Clark County.
Almost 7,000 people showed up to the convention yesterday morning to show support for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders as a selected delegate from their precinct. This event coming a day after a giant snafu that made thousands of delegates re-register with NVDems at a local SEIU office, causing some delegates/voters/Democrats to wait in line outside over 5 hours. People were giving up a day and a half to make sure that the convention ran smoothly and that their Presidential preference would be heard. A small price to pay for democracy!
The Convention in Clark County yesterday (Saturday, April 2) was supposed to begin fully at 12 with a partial open at 10, with some Democratic delegates, alternates, and guests arriving much earlier. While the event began around 10, with speeches from candidates, the entire event would not fully get underway until much later around 2 pm. While the audience was remaining patient and the speeches were fun, inspirational and entertaining including mine and some (just kidding!) politician named Nina Turner!! that would jolt an energy into the building that would carry through until the end of the night.
Between the speeches and the downtime, a state party person would let us know that all we were waiting on was a final count of the delegates to decide who would win the delegate battle between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton. A process that had lawyers from both campaigns watching over the process to make sure that the count was accurate. After hours of waiting, the results were finally in with the Chairman of the State Party grabbing the microphone and calling for quiet in the convention so he could announce the numbers.
Now, for a little perspective about the expectations that supporters for each campaign had. The Hillary Clinton supporters that I spoke with while speaking with voters from my district about my campaign felt very confident that Hillary Clinton would GAIN delegates from the event, and I could understand that confidence. As for the Bernie supporters, we had a confident but uneasy feeling that while we would at best maintain our results from the Caucus, we felt that there was a chance we would LOSE on the delegate front. So, there were expectations for both sides. And now for the chairman.
The chairman first announced Hillary Clinton’s delegate count: 2,390. A loud cheer from Clinton supporters. The Bernie Sanders supporters all looked around at one another bracing for the worst. The chairman announces Bernie Sanders delegate count: 2,958. I kid you not; there was about a 2-second pause as Bernie supporters quickly recalled Clinton’s count…then a loud roar that nearly took the roof off happened! There were high-fives, hugs, and smiles for miles. We did it, we showed up and had our voice heard! The final count would be Bernie Sanders - 2,964. Clinton – 2,386.
We turned a small Hillary Clinton win into a strong win for Bernie Sanders in Clark County! How? By showing up and showing that a caucus is not a clear representation of the people’s voices and that when we band together, we can take on the establishment and turn a state that wasn’t supposed to be for Bernie into a Bernie state. We won by working hard and knowing that in the end it will all pay off.
To all of the Bernie supporters not only here in Nevada but across the nation, when we stick together we can truly make a difference and turn races we never thought we could win, into resounding victories! Now, Bernie has won Clark County and could win Nevada at the state convention, and the momentum is clearly on our side! We have work to do and a long fight ahead of us, but as we showed in Nevada, if we fight hard and remember what we are fighting for, anything is possible!
Thank you,
Alex Singer
SingerforCongress.com
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