ANDREA SEABROOK, host:
And I'm joined now in the studio by NPR senior Washington editor, Ron Elving.
Hi, there, Ron.
RON ELVING: Good to be with you, Andrea.
SEABROOK: What do you make of the apparent Clinton victory in the Nevada caucuses?
ELVING: Well, it's great news for her, of course. It confirms her momentum coming out of New Hampshire. That was critical for her. It also shows her medal as a battler because, you know, she lost the endorsements that everyone went after so hot and heavy from the two big unions. And she battled back, did fine in those caucus casinos that Scott Horsley referred to earlier.
SEABROOK: Mm-hmm.
ELVING: She showed that she could still compete for that vote. She did very well among Hispanics. She brought out a lot of women. It looks as though the vote in Nevada on the Democratic side was 60 percent women, virtually 60 percent women. And, of course, that's a strong group for her.
She also did well among older voters. And people turned out in greater numbers as they got older. The older groups turned out more than the younger groups did and that's, of course, bad news for Barack Obama who did so well among younger people in Iowa.
SEABROOK: But he's not far behind. The numbers at least that we're getting so far, we don't have them all granted. But he's right on her heels there.
ELVING: While this is good news for Hillary, it's not clear yet that there's a lot of bad news in it for Barack. He knows he still has to get better turnout among his stronger groups, and he has to compete better among older people and among people who make less than $50,000 a year and who are not African-American. Looks like he won about four-fifths of the African-American vote.
As for John Edwards, hard to find a silver lining in these Nevada results for him.
SEABROOK: Yeah. Far behind still. Let's turn to the Republicans in Nevada. It seems to have been a cakewalk for Mitt Romney. How big a deal is it for Republicans that they - the other ones that they lost Nevada?
ELVING: Well, here again, it's really a good thing for Mitt Romney. It's a big confirmation of his momentum coming out the Michigan win that he just got and he's going to say, hey, I've got three golds and two silvers so far, referring to Michigan and Nevada and the earlier caucuses in Wyoming, and then, of course, the two silvers from Iowa and New Hampshire.
And he's going to say exactly that, and then they're going to cue the Olympic theme, and we could go right on with that. But how bad is it really for the rivals? Not maybe such a big deal because there was never a lot of question about who is going to win in Nevada. They knew that Mitt Romney was going to have a big Mormon turnout, and they knew that this was going to help him. Apparently, about a quarter of the people who voted today were Mormons and apparently they went overwhelmingly for Romney - no great surprise. And really it was only Mitt and Ron Paul competing here. The other guys were all focusing on South Carolina.
SEABROOK: It was sort of fait accompli. How important is having won Nevada for Mitt Romney?
ELVING: It's a big deal for him because if he had lost here as if he had lost in Michigan, he would be losing the momentum that he's not going to get out of South Carolina, where we're not expecting him to have a big night tonight. And assuming that he doesn't, he's going to have to have an alternative scenario for his nomination because as we know every Republican nominee since 1980 has won South Carolina.
SEABROOK: South Carolina. Democrats go to South Carolina. The polls in South Carolina next Saturday - does the winner in Nevada going to South Carolina with that, you know, the M-word, momentum, that we're always talking about?
ELVING: Yes, she does. But of course, it's a very different situation there and so that momentum may not be absolutely the last word. There are far fewer Hispanic voters in South Carolina, far more African-Americans - about half the Democratic base. And as we saw Obama really dominating that vote in Nevada today. If we see that again, Barack Obama will win in South Carolina. But look for more of a third - three-way race, I should say. Look for more of a John Edwards-comeback a little bit in South Carolina next week, even without the momentum that he, of course, did not get from Nevada today.
SEABROOK: NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving.
Thanks, Ron, very much.
ELVING: Thank you, Andrea. Thank you.