What Went Down In The 2020 Nevada Caucuses

In preliminary entrance polls, 82 percent of respondents say they’re confident that the votes cast in the Nevada caucuses will be counted correctly, while 16 percent say they aren’t confident. There’s a notable establishment/anti-establishment split here: Sanders is doing a lot better among the group that says they aren’t confident in the process, while almost all of the other candidates are doing better among the confident group.

I just got an email from a Warren-supporting group that is passing along a message from a Nevada voter they say cast a vote for Buttigieg and now regrets it. (Looks like the spin has already begun!)

Yeah, Kaleigh, I agree that incorporating the early votes seems like a really easy place for caucus organizers to get tripped up. Consider a hypothetical scenario where a candidate is just barely nonviable in a precinct (say, with 13 percent of the first-alignment vote). Realigned early votes may be enough to make that candidate viable, but I don’t think those voters have any way to know that. So do they stick together and gamble that they become viable once early votes are redistributed? Or do they give up on their first choice, split up and support their second choice?