Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday that a low voter turnout rate hurt his results in the Nevada caucus where his rival Hillary Clinton triumphed.
Sanders, who won the New Hampshire primary, discussed his loss on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He touted his win among Latino voters, but noted the turnout rate.
“But the voter turnout was not as high as I had wanted,” Sanders said. “And what I’ve said over and over again, we will do well when young people, when working-class people come out. We do not do well when the voter turnout is not large. We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout.”
Clinton had 52.7 percent of votes and Sanders had 47.2 percent in Nevada.
Well, that’s exactly the problem for the Democratic Party writ large. When Dem voters come out, we win. When they don’t - as in most midterms - we lose.
So, if Bernie can’t get them to show up to support him in an important primary election, what makes him think they’ll show up in the general?
One thing we do know about Hillary’s supporters. They will show up in November.
This is why it is difficult for any candidate to depend on “new” voters. New voters, and younger voters, have a tendency to not show up at the polls. They get all caught up in the campaign, but neglect to block off time on polling day to actually show up.
Was it really a low turnout for the Democrats in Nevada?
Contemporaneous reporting all says the turnout was high.
Low: