Sam’s Town casino is a pioneer-themed resort on the working-class east side of Las Vegas famous for its laserlight waterfall show, budget-friendly gambling, a bowling alley popular with locals, and the fact that Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s father, Mario Rubio, served drinks here in the early 1980s.

“I knew Mario,” said a casino floor bartender named Jim. “Quiet guy. His son is someone I’d support.”

Rubio’s family moved to Nevada when he was eight years old. His mother worked as a hotel maid at Imperial Palace on the strip. And though they only spent six years in Las Vegas, the Florida senator has often referred to his family’s stint there as a formative period in his life that has, in many ways, shaped his view of working-class America.

No other presidential candidate, Democratic or Republican, can claim to have such a connection with the state. On paper, Rubio would be well suited for a strong finish in its 23 February caucus, although his standing in the Republican race has grown more precarious after a disappointing showing in New Hampshire.

Rubio has made just five swings through Nevada as a presidential candidate, having divided much of his time between the first three early voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the senator’s few trips there have carried less an aura of a routine campaign stop than the feeling of a homecoming.

It was in Las Vegas where Rubio marched alongside his father on the picket lines for weeks, amid a strike of the Culinary Workers Union in 1984 at the hotel where the elder Rubio worked. It was also where, as Rubio sometimes notes on the campaign trail, his father would load the family into their car to drive around a “really nice” neighborhood nearby since there was not much entertainment at the time for children.

“One of the houses belonged to Liberace,” Rubio has recalled before crowds, before making light of its tackiness: “I don’t know why I remember that.”

At the story’s core is not a punchline, but rather one of the fundamental lessons Rubio says he gleaned from his father: that success was not to be demonized, but rather earned through perseverance.

“My parents could have said, ‘You see these people in nice houses, people like them have too much.’ You know what they taught us instead? ‘You live in a country where if you’re willing to work hard, you can live in one of these houses,’” Rubio has said. “It doesn’t matter that your father is a bartender and your mother is a maid.”



At the young Rubio’s insistence, his family also converted to Mormonism in those years. Although they later returned to the Catholic church, the senator long ago secured key endorsements in the state’s Mormon community. His Cuban-American roots might also pay dividends in Nevada, where around 20% of the electorate is Latino.

Rubio’s first public campaign events tailored toward Latino voters were held in Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. Taking a makeshift stage in October at Havana Grill, a Cuban restaurant, the senator was greeted like something of a rockstar.

I think Trump is too quick with the trigger... I want someone who’s a little more experienced, more political Jim, Nevada bartender

It was a boisterous affair, as a couple of hundred voters packed into the back of the restaurant for a glimpse of a man who might become the first Latino president. The simplest gestures on Rubio’s part – from occasional lines delivered in Spanish to the sip of a cafecito (Cuban espresso) – prompted cheers from the crowd.

The waitstaff peered out from the kitchen corridor, serving as a reminder of Rubio’s ability to identify with Sin City’s thousands of hospitality workers.

“He is articulate. He is aware of what’s going on,” said Jim, as he placed drinks on a waitress’s tray. “I think Trump is a little too quick with the trigger. You can’t be calling people jerks and bimbos. I want someone who’s a little more experienced, more political. And it’s not like Rubio had everything handed to him,” the bartender added. “He had to work for what he got.”

Another Sam’s Town bartender was not so keen on Rubio’s delivery. “He’s still a politician. I just got this thing against him,” said Tony Spalliero. “Rubio is going to have a fight out here because Trump knows casinos. I look at the Trump Towers and I see what could be done.”

In most recent Nevada polls, Donald Trump led the field by a wide margin. But the state’s complicated voting system rewards a well-organized campaign; Rubio staffers arrived there early to outpace competitors, and have deployed high-profile surrogates to win over activists.

A new CNN/ORC poll of Nevada released Wednesday put Rubio in second place, at 19%, with Texas senator Ted Cruz nipping at his heels at 17%. Trump remained well ahead of the pack at 45%.



Heidi Wixom is a grassroots organizer in Clark County’s Mormon community who has considered, at various points in the last few months, voting for Ben Carson or John Kasich. She was always impressed by Rubio, but only joined his cause after a convincing phone call from one of her church’s most prominent figures, Nevada lieutenant governor Mark Hutchison, who is Rubio’s campaign chairman in the state.

A former member of Mitt Romney’s finance team, Hutchison said: “I believe Rubio can unite the party. He appeals to young voters, conservative voters, minority voters, and those of faith. If the Republican party is going to win nationally, we have to increase the size of the tent, and Marco Rubio does that better than any candidate running for the nomination.”

Wixom echoed that point. “Rubio is electable,” she said. “He’s fresh and I know he has the intelligence to carry it off.”

“Electable” is a word used often by Rubio supporters, a subtle jab at his strongest competitors, Trump and Cruz. Yet to maintain this argument after an underwhelming fifth-place finish in New Hampshire, Rubio desperately needs those Republicans seeking an alternative to rally behind him.

Anticipating that establishment rivals would have faded from relevance by now, his campaign poised itself to harness new voters in Nevada, the fourth voting state, but the race remains fluid. Ohio governor John Kasich pulled off a surprise second place win in New Hampshire, while Jeb Bush has vowed to keep on fighting.



Hours before the 6 February New Hampshire debate, Wixom said: “I’ve heard lots of people say ‘I think I may support Rubio’. With the debates, you watch the patterns of all these different candidates over and over, and you’re left with a distinct feeling that Rubio’s really got it together. That’s the guy I can support.”

During that night’s debate, Rubio was criticized as “robotic” by rival Chris Christie when caught repeating talking points in a performance that was widely deemed to have been a disaster. Rubio ultimately slipped after a strong third place in Iowa to a devastating sixth in New Hampshire. Even Bush, whose campaign was considered dead in the water, edged just ahead of Rubio – lending the former Florida governor a rationale to stay in the race through at least South Carolina.

Rubio has since sought to regain his momentum, buoyed by a return to form in the most recent Republican debate. What happened in New Hampshire, he told reporters last week, is not dissimilar to the lessons he learned playing college football.

“You’re gonna get beat,” Rubio said. “You gotta put that play behind you because the next play is just as important.”

It bears mentioning that Nevada’s Tuesday evening caucus will likely see low turnout since shift workers, like the bartenders at Sam’s Town, will have to work at that hour. Nevada Democrats will hold their contest at 11am PST on Saturday and plan to accommodate shift workers by including caucus locations inside casinos on the Las Vegas strip. But since Republicans have made no such arrangements, turnout will likely depend more on a strong get-out-the-vote operation.

Timing the caucus according to traditional work schedules should also increase the importance of the Mormon vote. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make up only 4% of the state population, yet according to entrance polls, LDS voters accounted for 25% of Romney’s caucus support in Nevada in 2012.

David Fott, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the Mormon community “punches above its weight. They are involved in the community. A lot of them are civic-minded people. They are teachers, they are politicians, businessmen. But they don’t like to make a lot of noise about that.”

Nevada’s two senators, Harry Reid and Dean Heller, are both LDS churchgoers, as are a great number of state assembly members, mayors and city council members. At a Rubio campaign event in Henderson, Nevada on Monday, state assemblyman David Gardner said most LDS conservatives are leaning toward Rubio or Cruz.

“If you’re upset about what Obama is doing, I’ve seen a lot of those people go to Cruz because they want somebody to bash the Democrats,” Gardner said. “If you’re looking for somebody who’s got a more positive vision, that seems to be the Marco Rubio crowd.”

Another potential factor is the Florida senator’s little-known baptism into the Mormon church during his boyhood in Las Vegas. Much of his extended family in southern Nevada still belongs to the community, and in his autobiography, An American Son, Rubio credits the church with providing the “sound moral structure” his mother wanted for the family. “When we left the church a few years later, mostly at my instigation,” Rubio writes, “we did so with gratitude for its considerable contribution to our happiness in those years.”

According to the state’s top political journalist, columnist and television show host Jon Ralston, Rubio has made the greatest inroads with LDS voters through active support from prominent Mormon politicians such as Hutchison.



“They’ve also gotten lower-profile endorsements from people who have influence in that community and are able to turn out votes,” Ralston said. “The Mormons will be a factor. Whether it’s 25% or not, I don’t know, but they will be a factor.”

Local billionaire Sheldon Adelson might also play a part in the desert showdown.

His newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, endorsed the Florida senator on 5 February, and though the editorial denied the connection, most observers read the announcement as a sign that Adelson was increasingly leaning toward formally backing Rubio. The casino magnate is expected to outdo the largess of his contributions in the 2012 election season, when he donated $92m to political action groups.

A well-funded Super Pac would help with the ad war breaking out in Nevada in the run up to 23 February. But it will be up to Rubio’s official campaign to get out the vote in the blue collar, Latino and Mormon communities they believe are theirs to win.

Bruce Woodbury, an LDS church member and former Clark County commissioner, is among those who plans to organize for Rubio. “He remembers his roots. He’s made it clear he understands what Nevada is all about,” Woodbury said.

“And when you hear him talk, a lot of his values are Christian values in common with LDS people. But it’s not a religious thing with me. I’m supporting him just because I think he has the ability and vision to make an excellent president. And I really do think,” Woodbury added, “that he is the one candidate who has the best chance of winning in November. That’s a big factor with me.”