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LAS VEGAS – The last time a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign ran into trouble – in 2008, when she ran and ultimately lost to Barack Obama – she turned to Bill Clinton, her husband and the former president, as a campaign surrogate. And with polls suggesting Mrs. Clinton is struggling again, this time against Bernie Sanders, Mr. Clinton has returned to the place he likes best: the campaign trail.

Here in Nevada, whose Feb. 20 Democratic caucuses follow the contests in New Hampshire and Iowa, and where Mr. Clinton has long been popular, the former president offered a spirited defense of his wife Thursday night – but also some not-too-subtle shots at the Vermont senator who is giving his wife unexpected trouble in a contest she once thought would be easy.

“This other guy’s madder than she is,” Mr. Clinton said, his voice hoarse, as some in the crowd at a school gymnasium struggled to hear him. “And that feels authentic. And besides, his slogans are easier to say. I say that with no disrespect. I admire him.”

Without mentioning Mr. Sanders by name, Mr. Clinton dismissed one of his main campaign pledges, to provide free college tuition for all. “She does not agree that tuition should be free for everybody,” he said of his wife. “People like me and Hillary can afford to go to college. The government can’t help everyone. We should have money to put into jobs and infrastructure.”

Finally, Mr. Clinton, not surprisingly, declared his wife the winner of the debate earlier in the week. One reason, he said, was “she was the only one on top of the foreign policy.” But Mrs. Clinton’s really winning moment, he added, was her answer when the candidates were asked if there was any topic that hadn’t been raised – which, he said, told people all they needed to know.

“She said, ‘Yeah, I’m really upset about this lead poisoning in Flint,’” he said, recounting how Mrs. Clinton said she had intervened and tried to get the state of Michigan to take action on the contamination of that city’s water supply. Mr. Sanders, he noted, called for the state’s governor to resign.

“Now maybe he should,” Mr. Clinton said. “I don’t think he will. But the point is, it’s easy to place blame. It’s hard to make change. It’s hard to make change.”