LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Two political realities have set in across the Silver State ahead of the Nevada caucuses on Feb.22: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is the favorite to win; and the caucuses could be as chaotic as Iowa’s were, or worse.

Sanders only recently took the overall lead in the RealClearPolitics poll average for Nevada from former Vice President Joe Biden, who remains strong in the state. But Sanders has begun to pull away from the field, and the large attendance at his events has signaled to other campaigns that the real fight is for second and third place, Politico noted.

As Breitbart News has reported, the field is so bunched up among the top five — after Sanders — that anyone can still reasonably hope for a podium finish.

However, counting may prove to be a challenge. Nevada’s Democrats are using a similar ranked-choice caucus system to the one Iowa used, which in theory is supposed to give voters greater voice, but in practice was so confusing that many voters felt disenfranchised.

Nevada’s Democratic Party has ditched the app that Iowa used to count votes, which suffered technical mishaps on Election Night. But according to the Washington Post, Democrats privately fret that the stopgap measures the state party has invented to replace the app could prove just as disastrous.

Early voting began on Saturday:

https://mobile.twitter.com/GarrettHaake/status/1229471379029942278

The caucus will be held on Saturday at noon, after early voting ends on Tuesday.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.