Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a Feb. 19 rally, in Elko, Nevada, a remote city in the state's northeast corner. | AP Photo Sanders, Clinton hunt for rural votes A wrinkle in Nevada's Democratic caucus rules has both candidates chasing delegates in unlikely places.

ELKO, Nev. — There’s a reason veterans of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign speak almost wistfully of this remote, snow-capped city of 20,000, and it’s not the Red Lion casino.

It’s the same reason political aides working for both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have kept a close eye on this area for months, and why both candidates made stops here in the final days before Nevada’s caucuses.


A provision in Nevada’s Democratic caucus rules makes Democrats in more conservative, rural areas more influential than they would otherwise be because of the way the party allocates its delegates — by congressional district. By awarding five delegates to the Las Vegas-based 1st District but six delegates to each of the state’s other three districts, there’s an incentive for the campaigns to pay attention to the more sparsely populated areas.

This outpost in the state’s northeast corner remains a symbol of one of Obama’s major coups in the early days of 2008’s primary, when his campaign’s organization in rural Nevada empowered him to win a crucial extra delegate despite losing the popular vote handily to Clinton and her strong base of support over 400 miles to the south, in populous Las Vegas.

Now, both Clinton and Sanders are open about their attempt to follow that lead.

“In caucuses, people in rural areas have just as much of a voice, if not a bit of a stronger voice, than people in more urban areas,” explained Sanders’ state director Joan Kato, alluding to the more urban Clark County — the home of Las Vegas — where over three-quarters of the state’s Democrats live. That’s why Sanders’ team has three full-time organizers in Elko and an office there, on top of others in Winnemucca, Fernley, and Pahrump, said Kato. “Delegates — that’s what the caucuses are about. Delegate counts. I would be remiss if I did not take into account the delegates."

Dina Titus, Nevada’s sole Democratic House member and a Clinton backer, explained the political math.

“You don’t have as many voters in the rural areas, but the percentage of turnout is much higher. And that’s why they’re going to Elko, Reno, Carson City,” said Titus, a former political science professor. “They learned that lesson: that you need to make sure that the turnout is well-distributed."

Both campaigns have been making calls and sending paid mail pieces to places like Reno’s Washoe County, said Pam duPré, the executive director of that county’s Democrats and Clinton’s northern Nevada political director in 2008.

The divergent paths pursued by the campaigns as they've hunted rural votes send clear signals about their priorities in the state. Clinton’s team was on the ground in Nevada months before Sanders, and one of the senior staff’s first moves was to embark on a 1,250-mile road trip to the state’s rural corners, hitting all its counties in an attempt to build a statewide presence. There are also organizers dedicated to Elko, and to other rural areas. But in the closing hours of the campaign, the candidate herself is spending all her time in Las Vegas, focusing on juicing up turnout among her core supporters there in an attempt to win the primary through a powerful showing in the state’s south.

For his part, Sanders’ closing gambit is squarely on the rural side, with visits to both Elko and Sparks (in the west) on Friday — an apparent acknowledgement that he will need to perform particularly well in northern Nevada to match Clinton’s Las Vegas-based strength.

Speaking in the Elko High School gymnasium on Friday morning, the senator even briefly went local in his pitch, alluding to an ongoing local debate over solar power fees, insisting "we've got to make it easier for people to go to solar, not harder."

“He’s trying to break through the back door like Obama did, and it’ll depend on voter turnout,” explained Bob Miller, Nevada’s last Democratic governor. “She’s trying to work for the bigger districts — the bigger caucus sites — and he’s trying to see if he can sneak in the back way, with some of the smaller ones."

While few Democrats are concentrated in places like Elko, organizing here is easier than in Clark County, said several veterans of Nevada politics. The task of turning out the few caucus-goers who do live here doesn’t require as much innovation as driving up turnout near Las Vegas — where relatively low awareness of the caucuses and the huge concentration of tourists makes the task slightly trickier.

A Secret Service agent stands guard as a group of construction workers stands on a doorway for a glimpse of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Feb. 19 in Elko, Nevada. | AP Photo

Accordingly, the effects of the Sanders campaign’s late start in Nevada aren’t as pronounced here, particularly since his campaign has put an extra late emphasis on the rural, whiter areas where many voters care strongly about environmental issues.

“In the rural [counties], it’s much more classic field organizing,” explained David Cohen, the Nevada state director for Obama’s campaign in 2008. “It’s easier in that sense, because campaigns have the institutional knowledge. There might only be [few] Democrats in Elko, but they are undoubtedly the most passionate Democrats in the state of Nevada."

Nonetheless, for Sanders, the late attempt to zero in on the state’s sparse rural population is still a risky gambit while the former secretary of state and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, fan out across the Las Vegas strip.

“We got mamboed by the Clinton campaign in Clark County eight years ago. They have real strength there,” said Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, on the sidelines of a party dinner in Las Vegas on Thursday night. “We didn’t see that margin coming, and that’s the reason we lost [the popular vote]. We got brutalized here. Sanders will do well where we did well. Some of the rural areas [like those] in Washoe County."