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Monday Update: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has officially won the Nevada Caucuses, garnering 47 percent of the vote.

The Nevada State Democratic Party completed counting 100 percent of the caucus results Monday morning.

According to the official tabulation, Sanders won 6,788 delegates to the county conventions. Former Vice President Joe Biden came in second with 20 percent of the vote, giving him 2,927 delegates. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in third with 14 percent of the vote and 2,073 delegates.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren came in fourth with 10 percent of the vote and 1,406 delegates. Billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer took fifth and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar took sixth.

Original story:

In the end, it wasn’t that close — or that chaotic.

Bernie Sanders won Nevada’s closely watched Democratic presidential caucus after securing about 54 percent of the delegates counted in the Silver State as of Saturday evening.

Sanders, a two-time presidential contender and longtime Independent senator from Vermont, jumped out to a massive lead in some of the state’s most delegate-rich urban precincts and never looked back — prompting some media outlets to call the race just three hours after the caucusing began.

More:Caucus 2020: Nevadans gather to pick a Democratic presidential nominee

Related:Nevada Democrats caucus at Hug High School in Reno

Light in-person turnout and a new four-day early caucusing period appear to have helped the Nevada State Democratic Party release results relatively quickly, preventing a long-feared repeat of Iowa’s problem-plagued caucus and solidifying the state's case to remain near the top of the presidential nominating calendar.

Saturday also helped cement Nevada’s reputation as a potentially make-or-break battleground for stumbling presidential contenders, among them former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Both Biden and Warren boasted powerful political backers in Nevada and were once considered front-runners to win the state. Instead, the pair suffered major blows to their presidential prospects after combining to secure fewer than one-third of the state’s vote tally.

Biden seemed to suffer during the caucus’ second alignment, adding only a small handful of the supporters needed to fend off a crowded field of fellow moderates who sometimes took direct aim at the one-time national poll leader. Warren actually dropped supporters on the second ballot, contributing to her third place standing in the Silver State.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete suffered a similar fate and ultimately underperformed expectations heightened by a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire’s primary. Buttigieg looks set to finish fourth in Nevada, with roughly 9 percent of the vote.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, like Buttigieg, seemed unable to capitalize on the so-called “Klomentum” gained in New Hampshire, racking up merely 3 percent of ballots so far tallied here.

California billionaire Tom Steyer will also be disappointed by Saturday’s results.

The San Francisco-based hedge fund tycoon spent years, and several million of his own dollars, on a wide array of progressive policy campaigns in Nevada. It did not save him from finishing near the bottom of the state’s delegate count.

Nevada’s oft-criticized, party-run caucus process was not without its bumps, including late, sporadic reports of jammed vote-reporting phone lines and inconsistent use of officials’ much-discussed caucus calculator technology.

But none of it came close to casting doubt on Sanders’ resounding victory.

The 78-year-old self-described Democratic Socialist overcame late struggles with Las Vegas’ politically powerful Culinary Union on his way to securing a third-straight top finish in the race to take on President Donald Trump.

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He’ll enter South Carolina’s primary with unrivaled momentum that could translate into a near-insurmountable delegate lead after Super Tuesday.

Pollsters and pundits have long predicted Sanders’ win in Nevada, pointing to his lead in statewide polls and a longstanding field operation that dwarfed many other presidential hopefuls in the state.

Such political considerations were not on Lourdes Esparza's mind when she cast a vote for the candidate. Instead, she was thinking about her two nieces.

The possibility of Sanders taking the Oval Office puts her at ease when she thinks about the future in store for the young girls.

“He’s the best because he’s looking out for the people,” Esparza said. “He’s not establishment, he’s not status quo.”

The 38-year-old Las Vegas resident works two jobs — one with the Clark County Education Association and another as a restaurant hostess. She works seven days a week to help take care of her 82-year-old grandmother, who does not have health insurance.

That means Esparza has to pay for trips to the cardiologist. Her mother has to share her insulin because it’s too much to afford: $436 the family doesn’t have to spare.

Esparza doesn’t want her nieces to navigate the same world she struggles through every day: A place where education and health care must drop to the bottom of the priority list because the money just isn’t there.

“I’m always thinking ‘what kind of world are they going to live in?’” Esparza said. “Bernie Sanders can affect millions of people for generations to come.”

James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.