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we're back from las vegas here on the strip. the caucuses here in nevada are under way right now. they're actually happening. the race is still, according to nbc, too early to call. that's too early to call. let's bring in the moderator of "meet the press," nbc political editor chuck todd. chuck, do we know anything we didn't know two hours ago? except we know the ratio of age groups voting, something about the ethnic composition of the caucus attendees today. >> well, what we know is what the campaigns are telling us privately. both campaigns feel better than they thought they would. so i don't know, somebody's blowing smoke with me. other than that. but i'm always a little cautious on an entrance poll because thinks, a, can change in a caucus, and b, we're still dealing with a very small sample as compared to, for instance,

the number of actually interviews we've done with our entrance poll is now a third of what the number of interviews that we were able to do in the new hampshire primary, for instance. so lots of grains of salt on this. but obviously this hispanic number, if it's true, is a giant development if sanders wins hispanics. it would come as a complete shock and surprise to team clinton if true. there's lots of grains of salt here, chris. >> john ralston, the president, and everyone who pays attention now knows that hillary clinton has made a real effort to bond herself to this administration of barack obama as a way of playing offense/defense with her opponent bernie sanders, saying she was close to obama, he has not been. that was her argument coming in here. the downside of course is if you're disaffected with the failure of this administration and the government as a whole in both parties to do anything about immigration, to help legalize your parents, your

uncles, your grandparents, if the president is getting blamed for that, then hillary is getting blamed for that. do you think that's what's happening, john? >> it may be. they just counted the votes at caesar's palace, hillary clinton won that caucus 71-29. from my information in the field, she has won all six of those casino sites now by pretty good margins, which is good news for her. don't forget, they weren't going to do much there, the culinary union. then harry reid called the head of the union, got them to really organize in there. hillary clinton made visits to four of those sites at least, maybe five in the waning days. now you've got hundreds of culinary workers who are out there, who got time off work thanks to fall conalls made by e senate minority leader that appears to have greatly helped hillary clinton. there's going to be around a thousand, 1500 votes max.

it may not sound like a lot but it looks like she's winning those casino sectors. people will think maybe harry reid was trying to help her. >> you said 71, isn't that what we've hearing, 71% of people here should be for hillary based on what she did in 2008? >> yes, but she appeaneeds to r the score, it appears, in the casinos, to head off losses she may take in rural and northern nevada where bernie sanders is thought to be stronger. i'm not sure about those entrance polls was talking about. if those hispanic numbers are borne out, if bernie sanders beats her by double digits among hispanics, and again, that's early data, that's going to turn everything around. >> chuck, ten days from now we'll have 11 contests across the country, a real tsunami of voter participation, that includes people who they have not campaigned with, people who

have been less interested in this campaign. can bernie sanders arouse a majority of the voters who have not been involved in this political process this cycle to win? can he do it? it seems like a hell of an uphill race for him. >> we've seen in national polls, as bernie has proved viability in iowa and new hampshire, let's see what happens tonight. more democrats are finding themselves more open to him. all of a sudden a national democratic primary number against hillary clinton has gone from 20 plus points, it's now down to i think it was 11 in our last one. some have had it even closer than that. the point is you do see, the better he does in these early contests, when you get a little extra attention, the better opportunity he has to talk to these casual democrats who perhaps haven't been paying so much attention. that's what these early contests mean. the clinton people will say there's not many delegates, the real race is march 1st. right, but why sanders has to do

well in the early contests is to prove he is a player on march 1st. what i'm going to be looking for in the next ten days is how serious is sanders about winning this nomination. i've been surprised, he has a potential financial advantage over clinton right now on cash. he's able to raise money a lot quicker than she is because of his online fundraising ability. i have been surprised at how little money he's put in the march 1st states. the ones he's done, he's cherry picking, it's minnesota, colorado, massachusetts, places he should do well. we'll know if sanders is serious about winning in nomination in tennessee, texas, virginia. those are bigger states where if he's going to be the nominee, he can't just win those states, he has to win a lot of delegates. i'm curious to see what the sanders campaign will do to make

the next big step in truly trying to challenge her for the nomination. >> can his people come back and say, you know, hillary clinton won all the big states in 2008 and barack obama won the nomination? >> but see, barack obama won georgia, barack obama won virginia. barack obama didn't just win caucus states. he won primaries too. so that's -- you know, he doesn't have to -- there's no doubt, if he only lets her win the big states and he comes close and then wins other primaries, that's one thing. but that's what i mean. i look at him -- i'm not saying he has to win all of them. i'm curious whether he can win one of them. proving he can win one of them is a big deal, but so far there's no evidence he's going to. i picked those four because there's more diversity to them in many ways, to their electorates, that should, if he's going to resonate nationally, that then he should do better in those four. >> that's what i'm hearing, chuck. that's exactly what i think is the question.

and you know as well as i do that there's always this big question, can the insurgent take the cities, can he take the capital, can he run the table enough to actually beat the frontrunner, and it's still hillary clinton, and how he does that, as you say, is going to be apparent in his willingness to put his money on tv and win the big states. if he doesn't, he may be running as a protest, and a highly successful one, but not one able to get the delegates. this is so fascinating, it's not something we've seen before at all. we're going to get right back to chris hayes who is in henderson to get another sense of what's actually happening. we're doing better than we've ever done before, better than anyone else, showing what democracy looks like in a caucus, how caucuses can be. a bit difficult to get into. but here he is, chris. >> reporter: this is a group that has just gone through the fairly complicated process, breaking up into groups, counting and apportioning delegates. i have with me donna dee. you are a volunteer.

you're caucusing for hillary but you're also helping manage things here. >> we're caucusing for the democratic process. you choose your candidate and stand in line. it's very grassroots. we count. >> reporter: tell me what happened over here. there were people holding up pieces of paper. was that the delegate apportioning? >> that is for the count so we know how to apportion the delegates. it's a very complicated system. if i tried to explain it, you would cross your eyes. certain percentages allow you to have certain numbers of delegates. there are eight delegates. that's how they apportion it. >> reporter: a little history here. in 2008 hillary clinton actually won the caucuses, she had 51%. barack obama came out of the state with more delegates in the final delegate count. that's because of those -- yeah. and let me give you a little bit of history, i was at a high

school in 2008 at a caucus. two people were about to get into a fist fight. it was so complicated. this was much smoother although there have been some complications. how would you compare this to '08? >> this is an improvement. this is more organized. there is more work to be done. we never had a primary but we had the caucuses that were pretty willy-nilly and they never really counted for anything. this got really serious in 2008 when they started caucusing here. it's a great grassroots experience. however, if i had a preference, i would go to a primary. >> reporter: all right, donna, thank you very much. i want to bring over sam. sam -- if you were walking by on the way out of this caucus saying they agree with the urging of primary. sam, you live here in henderson? >> i do.

>> reporter: you're here cauc caucusing for bernie sanders? >> i am. >> reporter: is this your first time caucusing here? >> yes, i didn't live here in 2008. >> reporter: i know you had a disagreement about whether you had candidate speeches down there. what was your takeway? >> it was a complete mess. three days ago i got calls from the democratic party to be a precinct chair. really i think they should have had that figured out more than three days before the first in the west caucus. we sat for about 45 minutes doing nothing and somebody came up and said, don't start caucusing yet. then he showed up and said, we're not going to do the discussion aspect of this. >> reporter: so just to get a sense of some of the frustration, people are shaking their head and nodding in agreement with their frustration with the process. keep in mind, there's a lot of smiling faces and a lot of democracy, people are worked up. but again, this is -- you know, this has now been two or three or four hours out of people's

day. i've been saying all day, iowa has this thing about the iowa caucuses, it's been doing it for decade and decades, everybody comes and vets them, everybody candidate comes in the living room of every person who lives in the state of iowa. that's not the way it is here. the tradeoff is iowa has a labor-intensive process but they get a ton of attention. here in nevada, this is the second time they're doing it. they have this logistically complicated undertaking but they don't get the same level of candidate attention. some of that is a little bit of the frustration of the voters here in henderson, chris. >> thank you so much, chris. this is great stuff. when we come back, new data from steve kornacki in 30 rock but what people are saying as people go into these caucus. it's a bit interesting, let's put it that way. our coverage continues after this. life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine, i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment.

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we're live with our coverage on this beautiful day at the nevada caucuses out here in las vegas, on the strip in fact. nbc can now report the race is now too close to call. not too early. too close. let's go to steve kornacki with new data from our entrance polling. steve? >> reporter: chris, we have real results starting to come in. you see the numbers, bernie sanders, hillary clinton, basically tied. the numbers underneath to remind everybody what you're seeing there are county delegates. that's what the percentages are based on. this is not one of these elections where everybody goes and casts a ballot and we know how everybody voted. these are the county delegates. there's going to be a total of about 12,000 of them that are up for grabs today across the state. currently that is the count

you're seeing. where these results are coming in from, there's really only two population centers in the state, one around las vegas in clark county, the other around reno. these numbers are coming from both of those places right now. you're getting them from the population centers. we'll see, as this progresses. from the entrance poll, we have some interesting stuff, just about ideology. a trend we're starting to see, this is the third contest on the democratic side so far. we can call this a trend now, between iowa, new hampshire, and now nevada. we asked people, do you consider yourself very liberal or somewhat liberal. you can see eight years ago, these were the numbers. barely over half in iowa, 56 in new hampshire, 45 in nevada. look at the numbers we're seeing this year, iowa jumped from 54 to 68. new hampshire jumped from 56 to 68. look at the jump we're seeing in nevada today, from 45% to nearly 70% calling themselves liberals.

the last eight years of american politics, so much attention on the republican party becoming more conservative. we are seeing a democratic party that's emerging from the barack obama presidency much more liberal than it entered the obama presidency. in terms of how those voters are breaking down, in nevada, among very liberal voters, sanders leading. among somewhat liberal voters, sanders with a 12-point lead over hillary clinton. her bulwark in nevada, those who call themselves moderates, she's leading 18 points there, a little under 30% of the electorate in nevada, chris. >> what percentage now are very liberal, right now? >> reporter: i think the number right now is 32% we're seeing in the entrance poll. 32% in nevada calling themselves very liberal. 37% calling themselves somewhat liberal for the combined total of 69. >> it's very hard to distinguish, isn't it? i mean, off-the-cuff, and trying

to say -- you might say very liberal might suggest bernie, you might take that hunch. you might say moderate means hillary. but what do you do with the somewhat liberal? how do you break that apart? >> reporter: i think the keyword there, chris, is "liberal," i word that was taboo in so many ways in american politics for some years. whatever qualifier you put on it, very, somewhat, a significant number of people in the democratic party are willing to attach any form of the label "liberal" to themselves. i think that tells you go big picture about the trajectory of the party. >> everybody calls themselves a progressive now, progressives all over the place, from a democratic socialist to someone who says they're a moderate, hillary clinton, both of them saying they're progressive, it's getting to be pro miss can you say, the use of the word "progressive."

john ralston, our expert on these topics, what do you make of these numbers on ideology? >> you can see from the early numbers it's going to be very, very close, chris. i see those very liberal numbers the same way that you do. if hillary clinton manages to hold on here, and that's a big "if" right now based on those entry numbers, at those six casino sites where she won by overwhelming margins, if this is a close race, we'll go back to the phone call that harry reid made to the head of the culinary union which was standing on the sidelines, suddenly hundreds of workers show up after harry reid prodded them, a lot of people will think on behalf of hillary clinton, to do that. again, we only have about 14% of the precincts in now, and i hear that bernie sanders is doing pretty well in northern and rural nevada, which is what people expected to happen. i'm trying to find out where these numbers are coming from. i haven't gotten that information yet.

this is going to be very, very close. >> i'm wondering how we crosswalk phrases like "very liberal." does that mean you want a $15 minimum wage? does "somewhat liberal" mean $12? i'm serious about this, these are issues that bernie sanders has been raising successfully and hillary has not been so successful. gender of course, they were there long before this debate began. but since the debate began months ago, bernie has staked out positions where hillary has not, certainly as effectively. >> remember, chris, people trying to use this analogy, which i don't think is apples to apples, of sanders and obama in '08. what sanders is doing that obama did in '08 is expanding the electorate. the people who are already hardened clinton supporters, because she's woman, because they believe it's her time, because they love her, they

think she has all this experience, whatever she did as secretary of state or in the senate, those people are there. but what sanders has done that i think the clinton campaign did not expect is what obama did in '08, which is expand the electorate, bring in these new people, which least in the early going in nevada, appears to be what's happening. if the turnout turns out to be much larger than people expected, north of 70 or 75,000 voters, that's going to be very good news for bernie sanders. >> great news, thank you, john. hang on there, we'll go to howard fineman, he's down in south carolina right now to give us a sense. nbc is calling this too close to call. now we have a lot of information but it's apparently too close to call, literally. on the east coast, the first in the south republican primary is under way in south carolina, as we've been sake. the polls are closing there in less than four hours. they've still got a lot of voting to do. joining me from columbia, south carolina, "huffington post"'s

howard fineman. and an adviser to senator rand paul's presidential campaign. howard, what are we looking at here at the vegas strip, the big casino event of the week? >> reporter: all right. this is a national conversation. and the conversation here among republicans in south carolina reflects what john ralston was saying. you've got a situation where the democratic establishment in nevada, harry reid, namely, was but help hillary clinton. you have the same thing going on where the republican establishment, such as it is, is desperately trying to help marco rubio become the real challenger to donald trump. you've got nikki haley, the very popular governor here, who endorsed marco rubio. they have big set pieces with all of the established figures in republican politics here backing marco rubio. and i think marco rubio has gotten a bump out of that.

i think the turnout is heavy. donald trump, i attended a donald trump rally last night in charleston. there were more than 2,000 people there. he still draws the big crowds. he's still got a lot of enthusiasm behind him. the question here i think is going to be not whether donald trump wins, because i think he probably will. it's the question of how close anybody else comes to him. and whether that's marco rubio or ted cruz is the question. right now, i would say the talk here, the feel here, is marco rubio gaining inch by inch because of those endorsements. both places, in both parties, chris, you have what's left of the establishment desperately trying to hang on against two insurgents from the outside. bernie sanders with his big government promises and donald trump with his sort of authoritarian strong man, i'm going to fix everything businessman appeal. that's the commonality between the two states and the two events today.

in south carolina, the question is who will get how close to donald trump is and whether it's a real three-way race or whether donald trump winds big enough to set himself up for that big march 1st event that you were just discussing. >> let me ask you about the cruz campaign. it has shown in iowa and the caucuses there, and now in south carolina, some of the earmarks of a nasty campaign, a very hard-edged campaign, making charges and spreading rumors through push polling and things like that, techniques we're very familiar with, to kind of pick up a few votes around the edges. what do you have to say about that kind of campaigning and its effectiveness in these last hours? >> what i've been hearing, and i've been all over the state, chris, ted cruz's supporters are very fiercely for him. most of them are evangelical christians. but evangelical christians here in south carolina are different from iowa.

in iowa they were formed as an army, kind of like oliver cromwe cromwell's new model army. here, everybody is an evangelical christian. and it's not as much of a political statement. they have broader interests. they're interested in trade. they're interested in immigration. they're interested in obamacare. they're interested in business. those are the things that donald trump is appealing to them on. he's been able to break out of his base. ted cruz has not yet anywhere really been able to break out of his base. they are his force, but they are also his prison. and i haven't seen him be able to break out of that. now, when he does those tricks on the campaign trail, the photo shopping of the handshake with marco rubio, his people who are already for him love that. they live in the ted cruz reality. the rest of voters take a look at ted cruz and they recoil a little bit, as indeed some recoil from donald trump. donald trump's nasty language on the stage, donald trump's harsh attacks, work with a lot of

people. they don't work with everybody. but they work better for donald trump than they do for ted cruz. >> thank you, howard. we'll be back to you later today. let me go to elise jordan, one of our analysts in new york. elise, this libertarian vote that you're familiar with, having been formally associated with rand ball, i'm looking at this last minute robocall identified with the cruz campaign identifying donald trump with the lgbt cause. what will that do there? >> that is not a message that plays well with libertarian votes, trying to win over libertarian voters. they're more for getting government out of the business of marriage period. i think that you look at what's happening today in south carolina, cruz and trump just haven't done anything this week to really help themselves win over new converts. you look at rubio, i think he is probably going to eke out second, he might even get into the 20s.

he's had a great week with nikki haley's endorsement. all rubio has to do, getting second would be great for him or just make third place and keep getting third place until march 15th rolls around and there's some great winner take all states that he can probably sweep. >> that leaves the fourth place position open between jeb bush, of course, if he's still in the fight, and of course john kasich, who had a good bounce coming in second in new hampshire. is that still something that anybody is going to watch or is jeb basically out of this if he can't get at least third? is fourth good enough for jeb? >> i don't think so. and i think if he gets in fourth, he likely will be out. maybe he hangs in until tuesday and goes to nevada. after that, we're seeing the last of his campaign. john kasich, you know, he saw some momentum in new hampshire. we'll see if he can hold out until march 8th in michigan. i think it's going to be too little, too late. and how can that, you know, really propel him forward in this race that there really is such a heated competition?

>> elise, thank you so much for joining us from new york. we'll be right back. when we come back, tom brokaw is going to join us and talk about the key raises in nevada and south carolina. a doubleheader, a democratic race, a republican race, a caucus, a primary, we've got everything here today. 21% of the votes counted here in nevada already in the race here between bernie sanders and hillary clinton, and it's too close to call. back with more after this. i've been on my feel all day. i'm bushed! yea me too.

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we're back on the las vegas trip. it's amazing weather here today, everybody is happy and wandering around, they're basically nonpolitical except for the people going into these caucuses. they've been there now and doing an amazing democratic job. the race in informative informative is too close to call with 24% of the vote in. it's 52% for clinton, 48% for sanders. stay tuned.

at the caucus at the new york, new york hotel and casino. jacob, you're in the action. >> reporter: this gentleman here is undecided. a representative from the hillary clinton campaign. this gentleman is from the bernie sanders campaign. he's asking us to take a step back. we may see democracy in action right here, if this man decides to go with a particular preference group. they're lobbying to go to bernie sanders on one side. hillary's folks are going to do this side. we're watching this happen in realtime. to the right is hillary, to the left is bernie. he's still thinking about it. still talking to the representatives from the campaigns. 299 people here, 45 major group is viable over 15%. undecideds are not viable. this group in the middle is still thinking about it.

chris, as you can see, the groups are lobbying hard. it's a big decision. the next leader of the free world. we're talking about proportional delegates here. where these folks go really might matter. they're taking their sweet time, chris. >> this is likely getting picked for basketball games, getting picked for this team or that team. this is pretty animated stuff going on here. >> reporter: it's unbelievable. and just looking at the numbers, the sanders group at this location looks smaller than the hillary clinton group, because on the left side, i don't know if you can see our high bird's eye view as well, but the closest to you is the bernie sanders group. across the room on this side is the hillary group. these guys right now are talking to the chair of the caucus, the undecided voters are talking to the chair of the caucus. again, she is from nebraska, an official from the state party there. they are lobbying with

everything they can to get these one, two, three, four voters that are remaining here as undecideds over to their side. i don't know if this is the most efficient process for democracy. >> are the women, mainly older women, going with hillary? is there a pattern like that? >> reporter: it's a very diverse group on both sides, to be totally honest with you, chris. if you look across, these are not monolithic groups in any sense of the word. everybody is here, and like i said, they're all together. but they are not certainly one group one way or the other. and again, undecideds are still talking, they're smiling, clearly enjoying this. i want to point out one thing. this is in my opinion quite a messy way to do this. in iowa, even though the caucuses are a messy situation

there as well, the counting was much more efficient. a lot of these people were expecting to be out of here by 1:15. they're protected at work from getting into trouble. >> tom brokaw is on the strip here with me. tom, what do you make of this, this is pretty kinetic, let's put it that way. >> i'm looking at the internal. this is a liberal working class turnout based on everything we're hearing from the people who are there. very ominous signs for hillary clinton. does she have the right experience? 91% said yes as opposed to 8 for bernie sanders. can win in november, 77% said yes. but cares about people like me, she gets creamed by sanders. honest and trustworthy, 11% for hillary clinton. >> these are democrats. >> these are democrats. liberal, working class democrats, going to be the core of the party. nevada is not as exotic as it

seems. people come from all over, frankly, and reflect a lot of different cultures. they're working class people and are mostly worried about what's happening to them economically. terrorism is in single digits for them. these are ominous signs for hillary clinton, it seems to me, as you look at this. these are early numbers, but she's already stumbled over these barricades before in iowa and in new hampshire. what happens on super tuesday, it's going to be very hard to control. in every political season there is momentuomentum. donald trump is the beneficiary of that this year. and bernie sanders, i don't think they think he can win about he represents what they care about. >> you see everybody working, you know what the jobs are. we know a croupier is working at the tables, the waitresses are

working the tables, a concierge tells you where to go to find a show or some directions. we know they don't make a lot of money. >> the culinary union decided not to back candidates this time. >> what's that mean, that hillary couldn't pull them? >> couldn't pull them across the line. that's a very important working class union, especially here in nevada. but also these are the kinds of people you've brought next door too and they're the ones being most hurt by this economy. they think she can win. they would rather have sanders as the one they pick. >> the conservative argument is if you work hard, if you put in the hours, you'll move up to poor to working class to middle class and upper middle class and you'll get the american dream if you just work your butt off. is that gone? is there a sense that we need a policy change? >> it's more than a policy change. we have a dramatic shift in how the economy works. manufacturing has become so high

tech. i went out to southern ohio a couple of years ago towards a look at what they're doing at a community college. one bright young man, his job went down when the recession hit. he went to the community college, he was able to work with the new computer systems. two forklift operators couldn't adapt to the digital demands of the modern workplace. >> and they don't want to go from that forklift to a keyboard. >> they can't. it's not that they can't, it was just my heart on the one out for them, they're sweating it. it's not something they had grown up with. it's not something they had gotten used to. i don't know what happens to that part of the working class. these are the people i grew up with. >> let's talk about the democratic party, because that's what we're covering out here. the democratic party has been led for two presidencies now by certainly a moderate bill clinton, the third way, the whole thing, work hard and play by the rules, he believed very much in that american character

building, making a little more money, saving, sacrificing for your children. then you get ahead to a higher station in this country. barack obama came in with a strong progressive agenda but then came back to a more moderate approach. has that moderation of 16 years caused the democrats to say, enough of this, we're going to try something more dramatic? >> it's less of a broad characterization than it is, i'm a big believer in community colleges, in job training. >> that's bernie. >> that's right. but he also goes too far the other way. i mean, you're not going to have single payer health in this country, it's not going to happen politically, quite honestly. and he has no foreign policy experience. >> people say the issue of the enormous amount of money people are borrowing for college, middle class people, autopupper middle class, being stuck with 1

100,0 100,000, $200,000. >> they're borrowing money for college and they're not going to be able to get jobs. we're not going to give you $200,000 to you can go off to be a humanities page. a friend of mine who was a commencement speaker had a man come up to him and said, i'm $200,000 in debt. he said he was a humanities major. >> in the real world, jacob, thank you for going back in there with us. take us in. >> reporter: chris, so what seems to be the beginning of the end of quite an epic process

here is now under way. the three remaining women of the undecides went to the hillary clinton side. the tall man in the chef's shirt with an american flag sticking out of his lapel has gone to the bernie sanders side. this is rowdy and wild. one thing i want to remind everyone up, 34 precinct level delegates are going to be awarded. steve kornacki was pointing out that's about 8,000 delegates of the state's overall 12,000. once they finally get to the final number here of delegates, it's only going to be 34, divided up however many ways the candidates have split, out of 12,000 total for the state. >> can you tell what the people are feeling now? most of the time when you vote, it's kind of a very civilized thing. you go in the voting booth alone. there will be a few people outside with signs. they might pester you a little

bit but there's laws against doing too much of that. you quietly go to the booth, check your selections, and get a sticker to put on your lapel or your cap and you walk out feeling satisfied that you participated in elections, that you've done your duty and expressed yourself. what are these people going to come out of there thinking and feeling? this is quite an operation we're watching here. >> reporter: there's certainly a lot of pride in this room. to your point, chris, there's also a fair amount, at least from the people that i've tried to talk to, i tried to talk to as many folks as i can, not explicitly have they said this, but some folks don't like the fact that they're doing this in public. there are people i wanted to talk to who didn't necessarily want to tell me who they were voting for oncamera. in america we have the reputation of the australian, secret ballot, being able to vote and go home. with this caucus process, i think maybe ten or more states and other u.s. territories use,

at least the way that the democrats do it in iowa and nevada, it is a very public process. and look, right here, everybody is holding up their preference cards in the air. this is anything but secret, chris. >> we're going to see the same thing in colorado and minnesota on super tuesday, the same process that you've been covering. you'll have more of these escapades to cover, these demonstrations of political militants. because it shows a lot that people are willing -- my parents, i don't think they told each other how they voted. in fact i know that as a fact. because my mom voted for kennedy and never told my father. >> reporter: that's amazing to hear, chris. they certainly wouldn't have had that luxury during the democratic caucus process, at least how they do it in iowa and nevada. >> jacob, you're the best. thanks so much for coming in. we'll be back to you again as we get more results. much more from our entrance

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we're live on las vegas from the strip. breaking news, nbc news is now projecting that hillary clinton has a slight lead in this race. but the race is too close to call. slight lead but too close to call. let's go back to steve kornacki at 30 rock with more information. steve, break it out if you can. >> chris, we've been seeing this a little while, with these numbers. there's a reason the projection is moving slightly. it has to do with the area around las vegas, clark county.

all these numbers you're seeing here, 52%, 40%, the numbers next to that are the county delegates. there's going to be a total of 12,000 and change that are distributed across the state today. but more than 70% of those delegates are coming out of this one county, clark county. take a look inside here and see the results. hillary clinton right now, this is shaping up currently as basically her best county in the state. she has a 10-point lead over bernie sanders. clark county was a big county for hillary clinton in 2008. she won it by about the same margin she's leading bernie sanders right now. the key for the bernie sanders campaign is that about 70% of the vote is still out in clark county. so what you're seeing at the moment is hillary clinton is hitting the same number she hit eight years ago, that she needs to hit to win nevada. if she continues to hit that

number as the rest of the county comes in, she's in great shape in this state. for bernie sanders to overcome what he's up against, basically you need to have the precincts that are reported, the 30% that are in, would basically have to be unrepresentative. now, that could be the case. but at the moment hillary clinton is hitting the target in the county that was key to her eight years ago to win this state. one other element of this, mark murray just mentioned this on twitter and i'll pass this along to our viewers, there's also the national convention delegates that come out of nevada. eight years ago, while hillary clinton won the state on caucus day, barack obama beat her in the national delegates. because of a quirk in the process, the district around hillary clinton is doing well right now, there is an opportunity for the candidate to win there to basically pick up an extra delegate. it's very complicated in the math. but hillary clinton, if she continues to lead, like we're seeing right now, she would be

in great approximatiposition to that extra delegate. so what went wrong for her eight years ago, if she's winning in las vegas, she's looking good. >> we know harry reid has tremendous political pull out here, especially with the established politicians, the union leaders. was he able to open up opportunities for the union workers out here? and the casinos, like the one right here, new york, new york, so that nobody felt any pressure from work or bosses not to go vote, was there an effort to really get out the vote here, of the union people, even they they didn't officially endorse, the culinary workers, they were encouraged to go out and vote by their business managers and things like that? >> the one thing we can't see in these numbers, this is county-wide, the county is not just las vegas. we're talking about 75% almost

of the population for the entire state coming out here. so year also talking about suburbs here. you're talking about people outside of las vegas. it's unclear if the numbers that we're seeing are coming from what you're talking about. if they're coming from the casinos, if they're coming from the workers, if they're coming from union workers or if they are coming from outside of las vegas. what we can say, though, is we're starting to get a significant chunk of the vote. and again, it's 30% at last check, it may be up since we started talking. with 30% in, hillary clinton is hitting the number she hit eight years ago. >> i want to go to jacob who has a hard count from right here, his caucus right here in new york, new york casino and hotel. >> reporter: chris, all these people are walking out because we have a final count. they're handing their preference cards. the final numbers are 196 people for hillary clinton, 97 for bernie sanders. what that means is they divide up the delegates, there are 34

total, 23 for clinton, 11 for sanders. one thing i want to point out, as these people walk out of the room and hand in these preference cards, what she's shaking right here, we started the event with 299 people. my crude math, not very good in school, 196 plus 97 is not 299. so the process did take long enough that some folks had to go home. but again, the top line from here is hillary clinton with 23 delegates, 11 for sanders. out of the 12,000 total being awarded in this state today. >> again -- great reporting from jacob. let me go back to john ralston. john ralston, you're the expert, tell us what that means, 23 to 11, is that the right ratio if you're a hillary supporter to win this thing overall? >> chris, that's what she was hoping to do there. again, i don't know the raw turnout, and it's not a huge number of delegates. but let me read you the results, i have them here, from the other casino sites, if you want to hear those. 23 to 11 for hillary at new york, new york.

28-12 for hillary at caesar's palace, 15-9 from the wyn, 13-6 from the paris, and 5-3, one of the smaller ones, at the rio. she essentially one every single one of those casino sites decisively. that's going to matter. clark county is going to matter. steve pointed this out very well. she's hitting double digits in her lead in clark county. the way you win a race in nevada is you come out of clark county with a big lead and then you can afford to take losses in the rest of the state which is only 25, 28% of the population, depending on the turnout. if she can hold her own in reno and hold her own in rural nevada, she with win this race. again, the swing county in nevada, chris, people forget about this, is the county that reno is in, which evenly divided

between republicans and democrats. >> let me ask you about the power of these unions. in the casinos, how much clout do the union leaders, the people who get elected at the local level, the shop stewards, people like that, how much clout do they have when they walk into a room in which everybody notes how everybody is growing, they probably look to their best friends, how are you voting, everybody is going to see that. is there influence above or a peer group pressure or a union pressure that wouldn't be the case when you go into a secret ballot? >> i've been talking about that too, chris, i think you're right on on, on that. two months ago, even a month ago, even two weeks ago, the unions weren't going to do anything. then the leadership got this phone call from harry reid. so the leadership tells the shop stewards, get your people out, we're going to get permission from the hotels. it's not just the culinary where that's going on. you have the service employees union, you have many other unions in nevada that went with

hillary clinton. and as you say, it's a much different. if you walk into a voting booth, you don't care what the leadership said you should do, you push the button you want. but in a caucus, you can have people tattling to the leadership about how you voted. there's peer pressure. that phone call that harry reid made to the culinary union, and second, the fact that it's a caucus, and while you can divide and conquer with unions' rank and file in a primary, much more difficult to do in a caucus, for bernie sanders, when you're peers are standing right with you. >> this is going to be the next hour, we'll find out what happened here. this is a close one right now, as nbc is reporting, it's too close to call. some indication that hillary is doing pretty good. maybe not good enough. much more to come on both of the democratic caucuses here. we'll also talk about the republican primary in south

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office depot officemax. gear up for great. welcome back to msnbc's live coverage of the democratic caucuses out here. the race is too close to call but hillary clinton has a slight lead. let's get more numbers from steve kornacki who is back at 30 rock. >> we're close to half of all of the precincts in across the state right now. you say a slight lead. you look at those numbers, basically a 200-county delegate advantage. there are over 12,000 county delegates up for grabs here. these are not just people checking off boxes. it's a democratic caucus, it's complicated. a little more than 12,000 up for grabs.