LAS VEGAS — Want to understand Iowa’s outsize role in selecting the Democratic presidential nominee? Just come to the West, where anyone in Nevada or California will tell you: We are the voters presidential candidates should be paying more attention to.

Nevada will be the third state to vote in 2020, with its caucus coming just 11 days after the New Hampshire primary. And voters in California, which sends 495 delegates to the national convention, will start casting early ballots in the Democratic primary soon after the Iowa caucuses begin.

As more than a dozen candidates made their way through the states this weekend for campaign rallies and marathon candidate forums, there were near constant reminders about why each could make more sense to lead the charge to pick the party’s nominee for president.

There are more Latinos in Los Angeles County than the total population of the state of Iowa , as a moderator pointed out at the start of a forum on Latino issues in Los Angeles Sunday morning. Nevada, already a majority-minority state, is also home to one of the fastest growing Asian-American communities in the country.