2020 Presidential Campaign - It’s on

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LAS VEGAS — A new early-voting system, high turnout and questions about a never-before-used digital tool being used to process results could threaten the success of the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Saturday, election experts told NBC News.

"I don't see how any technologist or any party official or any political scientist can promise that this will turn out OK," said Mark Lindeman, the director of science and technology policy for Verified Voting, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that advocates for election accuracy and transparency.

"There are too many tools and procedures that are being rolled out, some at the last minute," he continued. "And my impression is that the people on the ground who are charged with implementing these procedures and using these tools are not confident they can do it."

Lindeman added, "I hope that it goes better than Iowa, but it is definitely at risk for similar reasons."

Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, would not even commit to releasing the results of the caucus on Saturday after the contest concluded, telling the Associated Press he prized accuracy over speed.

"We're going to do our best to release results as soon as possible, but our North Star, again, is accuracy," Perez said.

In Nevada, several factors are at play that contribute to the possibility that things will go awry, turning it into another debacle like tabulation of the Iowa caucuses.

During the early-voting window from Saturday through Tuesday (a new feature for the Nevada caucus), there was a ranked-choice system in place. Early voters had to mark their first choice and at least two additional choices, so that their votes can be realigned if their top choices don't make the cut.

The early votes then get routed to the voter's home precinct, so those votes will be counted alongside neighbors who are voting in person on Saturday.

"I don't want to make this sound even scarier than it is, but they haven't done this before, which makes it scary," Lindeman said.

On Saturday, the voting in the Nevada caucuses will proceed much like Iowa's did.

At most Democratic caucus locations, candidates must have support from at least 15 percent of caucus-goers in each precinct to be considered viable. Once all the attendees finish their first alignment, those with candidates who do make the cut are locked and cannot change their preference. Those who support nonviable candidates can realign with a viable candidate on the second round.

With those results, a formula awards delegates to viable candidates by precinct. Candidates have to hit the 15 percent threshold both in congressional districts and statewide to receive a share of the state's delegates.

The Nevada Democratic Party said it will be using a digital tool they are calling a "caucus calculator" to help process the results. According to state party officials, the tool is a Google Forms program that has been pre-loaded with early vote results specific to that precinct. It's also pre-loaded with formulas that will be used to calculate delegate allocation.

Caucus volunteers — who staff the precincts and run the caucuses — began receiving hands-on training with iPads that contain the tool on Tuesday. The training will continue until Saturday, according to the Nevada Democratic Party.

Party officials have repeatedly said that nothing used during the Iowa caucuses — including the smartphone app that caused a significant delay in reporting results due to a "coding issue" — will be used during the Nevada caucuses. Officials also said they had independent security experts test the process, but could not say what the testing looked like.

If the iPads fail for any reason, the volunteers will use paper backups.

"I think we have reason to be worried," said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California-Irvine and the editor of Election Law Blog. "As was the case in Iowa, you have the party doing multiple new things at once. Here, one is new technology, and two is new rules, with the early voting."

"It makes me queasy," he added, calling the system "incredibly complex."

Michael Bloomberg refers to transgender people as ‘it’ in 2019 video

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nator Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic presidential field in all 10 national polls released this week ahead of the Nevada caucuses, with former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg roughly tying for second.

Ten polls released since Monday shows Sanders as the Democratic frontrunner, with the senator's percentage of supporters ranging from the mid 20s to early 30s.

A Hill/HarrisX poll, released Wednesday, showed 22 percent of voters supporting Sanders, while Biden came in second place with 19 percent and Bloomberg following closely behind with 18.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll showed Sanders leading the field by six points with 24 percent of support from voters. Biden trailed behind in second with 18 percent, Senator Elizabeth Warren following closely in third with 16 percent and Bloomberg in fourth with 12.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Sanders doubling the candidate in second place with 32 percent of support, while Biden received 16 percent and Bloomberg came in third with 14 percent.

An Emerson College poll had Sanders at 29 percent, leading Biden's 22 percent by seven points. Bloomberg came in third with 14 percent of support from voters nationally.

Morning Consult's latest poll showed Sanders leading by eight points with 28 percent, while Bloomberg came in second with 20 percent and Biden following closely behind on 19 percent.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll saw Sanders leading by double digits with 27 percent, while Biden followed 12 points behind on 15 percent. Bloomberg and Warren tied for third, each garnering 14 percent.

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, Sanders, again, led the field with 25 percent, with Bloomberg in second at 17 percent. Biden followed in third with 13 percent and Buttigieg in fourth garnering 11 percent.

A recent SurveyUSA poll showed Sanders leading the field by 11 points with 29 percent of support among voters, while Bloomberg and Biden tied for second after having garnered 18 percent each.

This week's NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll showed Sanders maintaining a strong lead with 31 percent. Bloomberg came in second with 19 percent, and Biden fell to third at 15 percent.

Lastly, a Zogby Analytics survey had Sanders in first place by four points with 24 percent of support. Bloomberg and Biden followed in second and third with 20 and 18 percent respectively.

"There is one clear and inescapable set of results: Bernie Sanders is the definitive front-runner, and the current numbers do not represent his ceiling, but instead his base with room to grow," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who co-conducted the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

According to FiveThirtyEight, a polling website that focuses on politics, economics and sports, Sanders' national polling average, after taking into account the 10 polls this week, is currently at 25.3 percent, a three point increase from his position 10 days ago.

While Bloomberg and Biden are roughly tied for second place, they both appear to be moving in opposite directions. Bloomberg, a newcomer to the field who will take the debate stage for the first time in Nevada tonight, has been trending up in the polls, while Biden has seen a drop in his support after a disappointing run in early voting states

CBS News has announced the moderators for the 10th Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina on February 25, the last time the candidates will face off before the state's critical primary.

"CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell and "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King will moderate the debate, joined in questioning by "Face the Nation" moderator and senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan, chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett and "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker.

CBS News is co-hosting the debate with the Congressional Black Caucus Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, beginning at 8 p.m. ET on CBS stations. The debate will be streamed live on CBSN, CBS News' free 24/7 streaming service, and appear in its entirety on BET, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS. Twitter is a debate partner, and voters can use the hashtag #DemDebate to submit questions that might be posed to the candidates.

Well, at least the votes seemed to be counted properly this time.

Democrats were able to breath a big sigh of relief after Nevada competently pulled off a caucus. It is more than they can say for Iowa. Worries abounded up to election day that there would be a repeat of the chaos in the Hawkeye State — especially after Nevadans were all lined up to use the same disastrous app to report voting results. The app was scrapped, voting officials were retrained, and everyone crossed their fingers.

While voting worked, the actual votes didn’t do a whole lot to settle this field. There is still Bernie Sanders versus a big muddle of other candidates heading toward the next stop, South Carolina. Voters in the middle are fast running out of time to rally around a candidate who can compete with the democratic socialist in the race for delegates. Here are some takeaways from election day

Sanders barrels through
Bernie Sanders gained momentum in his march toward the nomination with his strong finish in Nevada.

He did it after hitting his biggest headwinds yet in Nevada. The highly influential culinary workers union put considerable effort into trying to undermine his bid there. The union worries that the Medicare for All plan promoted by Sanders would cost members the generous health care benefits they have fought hard to win.

Yet the union found itself confronting the same reality as all the other forces fighting to tame the Sanders momentum nationwide: there is no consensus alternative on the ticket. Culinary workers who cast ballots for Sanders rivals split the opposition vote among the many other candidates. Sanders consolidated the left, as he has in other states so far, and once again cruised to victory.

Biden ambles on
Joe Biden hobbled into Nevada after dismal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. He insisted his candidacy would come back to life once the more racially diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina have their say.

Yet voters have now had their say in one of those states and the former vice president still has no wins. The candidate who entered the race as an 800-pound gorilla lately shows more like an aimless puppy. It is still too soon to count him out. But after losing an enormous amount of support from African Americans — the voters who were supposed to bolster Biden’s “firewall” in the South — the thing that seems to be propelling him most lately is uneasiness with the alternatives.

Former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s dismal week may have created a lifeline of sorts for the Biden candidacy. But he has to clean up in South Carolina and notch some big wins on Super Tuesday to stay viable — and those are tall orders for this struggling campaign.

Warren can’t break her funk
For the 19.7 million Americans who watched the presidential debate on Wednesday, the ho-hum showing in Nevada for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren may seem surprising. Warren was on fire Wednesday night. She burned down any aura of inevitability around the candidacy of rival Bloomberg, exposing the billionaire as a flawed candidate once the armor of his relentless television and digital advertising is pierced.

Yet the results in Nevada reveal, yet again, how any path to the nomination is rapidly closing off for the senator. Warren has spent much of the race pivoting. She pivoted hard toward winning over the most progressive wing of the party at first. But she couldn’t out-progressive Sanders. So she moved to be the candidate who could bridge progressive policy with a pragmatic approach. But that is a crowded space, and her embrace of Medicare for all, while not unflinching enough for the left, still proved too hard to stomach for many moderates. So Warren headed into Nevada full of energy, but without any clear constituency.

The electoral math is looking increasingly tough for the senator.

Money can only buy so much love
California billionaire Tom Steyer spent 10 times more on advertising in Nevada than any other candidate. He spent more time there than any other candidate. The idea was to come out of that state with a big bounce that propelled him into serious contention.

That didn’t quite happen. The billionaire has struggled to distinguish himself in this race. His national polling wasn’t even strong enough to qualify him for the debate stage in Nevada, one of two states where Steyer had placed big bets. His huge bank account likely means he can stay in the race as long as he wants, but it doesn’t mean he will win any relevant number of delegates.

Big test for Buttigieg ahead
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., proved on Saturday that his appeal extends beyond just states that are overwhelmingly white.

But a bigger test for the 38-year-old is when South Carolina votes next week. He has struggled to make inroads with African American voters. Their support is crucial to winning the nomination and in South Carolina, they make up nearly two thirds of Democratic primary voters.

Bloomberg’s very bad week
Centrists growing alarmed that nobody in the field is emerging to stand in the path of Sanders had begun to put stock in Bloomberg’s late entry bid. He has now spent more than half a billion dollars since late November, propelling a rapid ascent in the polls.

Nevada gave many Democrats pause about Bloomberg. Not because of how voters weighed in — the billionaire opted not to compete there or in the three other states voting before Super Tuesday. Yet his polling surge qualified him for the debate. Bloomberg did himself no favors on the debate stage. In fact, he bombed.

He was pummeled for refusing to release women who have sued his company for harassment and discrimination from secrecy agreements the company insisted they sign. His defense of these agreements created a portrait of a candidate out of step with the MeToo movement. He struggled to explain his championing of a policing policy that he himself admitted as recently as 2015 was rooted in “throwing” young minorities against walls and frisking them.

By the end of the week, Bloomberg was announcing that he would release a select few of the women who sued his company from their nondisclosure agreements. Rivals pounced again: why not all of them?

Bloomberg will try to redeem himself at the Charleston debate on Tuesday. But while he may hope that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, the primary debate in which he cratered had a large TV audience. More people saw it than watched the Grammy’s.