Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucuses, accelerating the momentum and strengthening his position heading into next week’s primary in South Carolina and the March 3 Super Tuesday contests.

He also showed his strength with minority voters.

In entrance polls, he was trouncing other candidates with Latino and Hispanic caucus-goers in Nevada, according to NBC News entrance polling results that showed him with 53% of the vote with that demographic in the seven-person race.

The entrance polls showed former Vice President Joe Biden at 16% of the Latino and Hispanic vote, former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 9%, billionaire activist Tom Steyer with 8% and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 7%.

Overall, Sanders leads among nonwhite voters as well. Nevada, the third state to vote, is the first with a significant minority population. About three in 10 Nevadans are Latinos, 10% of the population is black, and 10% is Asian American and Pacific Islander.

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The entrance polls showed that about one in five Nevada caucus-goers is Latino, and that Latino caucus-goers are younger and less likely to hold a college degree than their white counterparts. More than half are younger than 45 years old, and 63% of 2020 Latino caucus-goers said in entrance polls they were attending their first caucuses.

Latino caucus-goers were also more likely to support Medicare for All, one of Sanders’ flagship policy proposals. And of the Latinos who identify as moderate or conservative, 47% supported Sanders; his closest rival for this subset of Latino voters is Biden, who trails at 19%.

During the campaign for the Nevada caucus, Sanders' rivals sought to benefit from the fact that the powerful Culinary Union, the state’s largest labor organization, had criticized Medicare for All, warning that workers would have to give up their hard-fought health care benefits for coverage that might not be as good.

But the Culinary Union ultimately decided not to endorse a candidate in the Nevada caucus.

In 2016, Sanders also led among Latino voters with 53% to Hillary Clinton’s 45%, according to entrance polling.