Sanders eviscerates the conventional wisdom about why he can't win

[peoli]

LAS VEGAS — On Saturday in Nevada, Bernie Sanders laid waste not just to his five main rivals but also to every shard of conventional wisdom about the Democratic presidential primaries.

You could see the dominoes of punditry cliches falling inside the caucus rooms. At the Bellagio Hotel, which held one of several “Strip caucuses” meant to be easily accessible to hospitality workers along Vegas’ main drag, 75 Sanders supporters gathered along the wall of a ballroom.

The powerful Culinary Union, which opposes Sanders’ Medicare for All plan and spent the final weeks of the campaign in a high-profile fight with his campaign, was supposed to weaken him. And yet the Sanders’s ranks were speckled with red-shirted Culinary members. (Overall, Sanders won 34% of caucus-goers from union households, besting all of his rivals.)

Sanders wasn’t supposed to be able to break through with black and brown voters, but the group was racially and ethnically diverse. (Sanders won 27% of African Americans and 53% of Hispanics across the state.) The Sanders movement is supposed to be limited to those crazy college kids who don’t remember socialist as a slur. But there were plenty of older Sanders backers at the Bellagio chanting “Bernie” along with their 20-something comrades. (Sanders won every age category in the state except Nevadans over 65, which he ceded to Joe Biden.)

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/22/bernie-sanders-nevada-2020-election-116762