For the last few months, team Hillary leaned heavily on one claim as a rationale for her candidacy. Despite her status as a throwback candidate, despite all the scandal, negative press, and dishonesty, Hillary’s people assured the Dems that she positively owned the minority vote. Bernie Sanders might appeal to the “white millennial stoner” crowd, but Hillary would be able to go the distance because she could take black and hispanic liberals for granted.

There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada. But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white voters. You have a caucus-style format, and he’ll have the momentum coming out of New Hampshire presumably, so there’s a lot of reasons he should do well.

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon has tried to lower expectations ahead of the Nevada caucus. He told NBC’s Chuck Todd :

As Breitbart reports , suddenly Nevada is super-white and therefore not really Hillary’s “thing.”

Now? Well…. Now they’re not so thrilled with Nevada either. New polling suggests that Bernie has managed to narrow, or even close, the gap in the state that was supposed to serve as reassurance that Mrs. Clinton had a “minority firewall” protecting her electoral hopes.

Before her humiliation in Iowa, that was the promise. After Iowa, they doubled down. When it became clear that New Hampshire was going to be an embarrassment, they moved the goal posts and said “look to Nevada.”

Nevada’s Jon Ralston quickly pushed back on the Clinton camp assertion that the state is 80 percent white. I understand the desire of Team Clinton to lower expectations in Nevada after being crushed by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. But both Mook and Fallon know that 80 percent figure is ludicrous, and the attempt to make Nevada seem like Iowa and New Hampshire is a spin too far. The facts: Nevada’s Hispanic population is about 27 percent. African-Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders make up almost 10 percent each. That is, nearly half of the state’s population is made up of minorities.

The fine folks over at The Free Beacon conducted a poll showing the Sanders-Clinton fight in a dead heat among likely caucusers:

Nevadans expected to participate in next week’s Democratic presidential caucus are evenly split between the party’s two candidates, according to a new Washington Free Beacon poll. The poll shows Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tied at 45 percent each among likely caucusgoers. Clinton narrowly edges Sanders among those who have completely made up their mind. But undecided caucusgoers and those who might change their mind say recent scandals involving Clinton make them significantly less likely to support her.

Clinton loses, badly, in terms of trustworthiness, whether she “cares,” and “who’s more progressive.”

More importantly, she’s running way, way, behind where she was back in 2008, when she clobbered both Obama and John Edwards.

Liberals like to attack this poll, since it comes from a right-wing source, but Clinton’s internals must be saying something similar. If they were confident in their chances, they wouldn’t be attempting to downplay their odds.

All of this would lead one to believe that, more than likely, Bernie will have a slight popular vote edge in Nevada. That’s great news for progressives who are still desperately pretending that he’s electable at the national level. Unfortunately for them, just like in New Hampshire, their party isn’t cooperating.

Whether he wins or loses, Hillary will still beat him in terms of DNC superdelegates, as The Hill reports:

Hillary Clinton has already locked up half the Democratic superdelegates in Nevada and South Carolina before the first votes are cast in either state. The former secretary of State has won public support from half of South Carolina’s six superdelegates and three of Nevada’s eight superdelegates. Bernie Sanders has secured only one, a Democratic national committeewoman from Nevada.

That’s great news for the Republicans because hopefully, when the Dems nominate the inevitable Hillary, Bernie-fans will be so outraged that they just stay home. After all, their anti-capitalist, anti-bank, principles trump all, right? They wouldn’t dare turn out to support a “corporatist bankster” just because she had a “D” after her name…

Would they?