Jennifer Jacobs

The Des Moines Register

LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses Saturday, her first unqualified win of the campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Nevada was supposed to be Clinton country all along, but the former secretary of State’s seemingly insurmountable lead of more than 20 points had shriveled in recent weeks, raising concerns about the possibility of another embarrassment following her 22-point loss in New Hampshire and her razor thin victory in Iowa, which was described as a virtual tie.

Instead, she was on her way to a clear victory, but still within single digits, giving Sanders and his supporters room to to claim the day was not a total loss.

"Some may have doubted us but we never doubted each other," she told supporters at a victory rally. "And this one is for you."

Clinton congratulated Sanders, but then needled him for his focus on condemning the rich for trying to control the political system.

“We aren’t a single-issue country,” she said. “We need more than a plan for the big banks. The middle class needs a raise! And we need more jobs. We need jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.”

Clinton won all six at-large precincts set up on Las Vegas Strip for on-duty casino and hotel shift workers on Saturday, Nevada Democratic Party results showed. At the Paris casino, the caucusgoers were almost exclusively Latino and black – and Clinton snagged more than twice the delegates Sanders received.

Sanders did better than expected with Latino voters, entrance polling showed, but Clinton carried off a big win with African American voters — a segment of the population she’s counting on to help her win in the Southern states that vote next month.

It was a blow to Sanders, who had hoped Nevada would prove he has what it takes to carry more diverse states.

First Take: Clinton win halts Sanders momentum as battle heads to Southern races

Sanders issued a statement shortly after the race was called, saying he had spoken to Clinton “and congratulated her on her victory here in Nevada.”

In a speech to supporters, he said he still believes he has the momentum in the Democratic contest nationwide. "I believe that on Super Tuesday we've got an excellent chance to win many of those states," he said, and his nomination at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia will mark "one of the great political upsets in the history of the United States."

Leomia Dillon, a 55-year-old guest service operator at the Paris casino, was ecstatic about Clinton's victory.

“I like what she stands for,” said Dillon, who is black. “She stands for women, and equal pay for women.”

The results were a disappointment to Dennis Torh, 47, who works in housekeeping at the hotel at the Paris casino. “Bernie Sanders stood with MLK and has great experience. He wants everyone to be able to afford a college education,” said Torh, who is black and has no college degree.

Clinton backers said the victory proved she’s better at retail campaigning that political observers usually give her credit for. She personally visited the back-of-the-house at casinos to ask shift workers for their votes, including a midnight visit to Caesars Palace after a 16-hour day on Wednesday.

In the final days before the Nevada caucuses, the candidates took turns trying to make a dent in the others’ popularity, especially with black and Latino voters. Minority voters held the cards in Nevada, where 48.5% of the population is non-white.

Clinton repeatedly stressed her closeness with President Obama, the nation’s first black president. Sanders this week accused Clinton of pandering to blacks, telling the Black Entertainment Television cable network that “she loves the president, he loves her and all that stuff. And we know what that's about. That's trying to win support from the African-American community where the president is enormously popular.”

A photograph surfaced on Friday that helped Sanders’ counter Clinton surrogates’ claim that he was absent from the civil rights battle. The Chicago Tribune dug out of its archives a photo of a 21-year-old Sanders, a University of Chicago student at the time, resisting arrest during a 1963 protest over racial inequality.

Immigration has been another point of contention this week. Team Clinton attacked Sanders for voting against a 2007 immigration bill; Sanders defended his opposition, saying he believed its guest worker provision to be morally wrong. The dispute prompted a leading Latino rights activist, Brent Wilkes of the League of United Latin American Citizens, to call Clinton’s criticism “unfair.” Wilkes told BuzzFeed News: “It’s hard to separate Hillary’s record from (her husband’s). The Clintons, when they were in office, weren’t exactly friends to immigrants.”

Clinton’s trustworthiness, and her closeness to the powerful financial industry leaders of Wall Street, were big themes in the closing days, as well.

Clinton stirred trouble for herself by seeming to hedge when asked in a CBS News interview on Thursday if she’d echo President Jimmy Carter’s pledge to never lie to the American people. She answered that she doesn’t think she has ever lied.

“I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever will,” she told CBS anchor Scott Pelley.

Sanders continued to push Clinton to release transcripts of her closed-door speeches to Wall Street. Thursday night, during the MSNBC town hall forum in Las Vegas, Clinton said she’d be “happy to release anything I have when everybody else does the same.” Team Sanders fired back in an email statement Friday: “So, OK. Bernie accepts Hillary Clinton’s challenge. We will release the transcripts of all his Wall Street speeches. Right here. In this email. Bernie's never been paid to speak to Wall Street.”

The candidates' relatives also made headlines this week.

Sanders’ brother Larry caught attention for telling the Daily Beast that voters are too busy debating whether “Bill really such a terrible rapist — or is he a nice rapist” to evaluate his presidential record. A Sanders aide said Friday that Sanders doesn’t agree with his brother’s characterization.

In Reno on Friday, Bill Clinton blasted Sanders for running a “remarkably fact-free” campaign, then expressed frustration during the Las Vegas rally later day, saying that these days, he’s just a “happy grandfather” who doesn’t wake up mad at anyone, but that has changed “in the last few days.”

Hillary Clinton criticized Sanders’ proposals for “free stuff” such as government-paid public college tuition for all, and on Friday night told Nevada voters she won’t “overpromise.”

“I will not make promises I can’t keep,” she said at her Las Vegas rally.