Klobuchar congratulates herself for 'exceeding expectations' as early Nevada results show her in distant 5th

Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-Minn.) 2020 momentum may be sputtering, but she doesn't seem to notice.

While the Democratic presidential candidate turned out a surprising third place finish in New Hampshire's Democratic primary earlier this month, that luck hasn't seemed to extend to Nevada's caucuses. Still, Klobuchar delivered a self-congratulatory speech on Saturday where she praised her team for having "exceeded expectations," despite early results showing her in a distant fifth place.

With four percent of caucuses reporting Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had secured more than 6,000 votes to former Vice President Joe Biden's 2,700 and Klobuchar's 1,068. That put Klobuchar in the bottom half of candidates as Saturday's results came in, and entrance polls taken earlier in the day didn't show a more positive future. Still, Klobuchar thanked her team while thousands of miles away from Nevada, saying "as usual, I think we have exceeded expectations," Klobuchar said. "A lot of people didn't even think that I would still be standing at this point," or at several other points in her campaign, she continued.

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Former Vice President Joe Biden's Saturday speech sounded even more victorious, though even his second-place standing at the time he spoke was tenuous. Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg had only about 250 votes less than Biden, but Biden said he could still "win this state outright" when speaking in Nevada. Ironically, NBC News cut away from Biden's speech to project that wasn't happening.