By Camelia Heins
The Nevada Democratic presidential caucus recently took place on Feb. 22. Here is everything you need to know.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders led the caucus with 46.8% of votes. Former vice president Joe Biden came in second with 20.2% of votes. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, came in third place with 14.3% of votes. In fourth place was senator of Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren with 9.7% of votes and in fifth place was Tom Steyer with 4.7% of votes.
Unlike the New Hampshire primary which occurred last week, Nevada had a caucus. A caucus is a different process from the primary voting system. In this system, voters have meetings to select their candidates and go through several regrouping phases throughout the process in order to select a certain number of delegates for their candidate.
Last week, the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary took place on Feb. 11. Sanders came in first place with 25.6% of votes. Buttigieg came in second place with 24.3% of votes. In third place was Amy Klobuchar, senator of Minnesota, with 19.7% of votes. Warren came in fourth place with 9.2% of votes and Biden came in fifth place with 8.4% of votes.
The New Hampshire Republican presidential primary also took place on the same day. Donald Trump won with 85.7% of votes. Former governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld came in second place with 9.1% of votes.
During a primary or caucus, each candidate receives a certain amount of pledged delegates, depending on their placing. A pledged delegate is a person chosen by their corresponding state to “pledge” for a candidate based on the given results. During the party’s national convention, which usually takes place the summer before the national election, each party will nominate the leading candidate based on a preset majority number of delegates.
In the Nevada caucus, Sanders received 24 delegates, Biden received 9 and Buttigeig received 3. Trump received 25 delegates. All other candidates received no delegates.
In the New Hampshire primary, Sanders and Buttigieg both received 9 pledged delegates, Klobuchar received 6. Trump received 22 pledged delegates. All other candidates received no pledged delegates.
On the Democratic side, Sanders is in the lead with 45 total delegates. Buttigeig comes in second with 25 delegates. Biden has 15 delegates and Warren has 8. Klobuchar has 7 total delegates. For the Republicans, Trump has 86 overall delegates and Weld has 1 delegate.
Last week during the New Hampshire primary, three Democratic presidential candidates dropped out of the race including Andrew Yang, Deval Patrick and Michael Bennet. Reasons for dropping out include doing poorly in the New Hampshire primary or lack of resources and money for their campaign.
The next primary will take place on Feb. 29 for South Carolina. After that, “Super Tuesday”, named after how many states are participating, will take place on March 3. 14 states including California and Texas will be voting on “Super Tuesday”.
