Nevada looms as battleground for Clinton and Sanders

Isaac Brekken / The New York Times

The Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada were supposed to be an afterthought: lost in the shadows of high-profile battles in Iowa and New Hampshire, fought in a state far off in the West, where voters have a long, warm history with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Instead, after Hillary Clinton’s overwhelming defeat in New Hampshire by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, eight days after she barely won the Iowa caucuses, Nevada is looming as a turning point in their increasingly competitive contest, offering critical tests of the two candidates’ strengths.

After strong showings in two overwhelmingly white states, Sanders will have an opportunity to answer the central question for many Democrats trying to judge whether he is more than a particularly strong early-contest protest candidate. This state is as racially diverse as Iowa and New Hampshire are not: About 20 percent of the Democratic electorate is Hispanic, and 13 percent African-American. Over 95 percent of Vermont, his home state, is white.

For Clinton, Nevada — historically friendly territory for the Clinton family — offers a chance to put her campaign on solid footing after a staggering double-digit defeat in New Hampshire that stirred new concerns among Democrats about her political strengths. She opened her first office here last April, six months before Sanders. Her national campaign manager, Robby Mook, ran Nevada for Clinton in 2008, when she narrowly won the popular vote, though in a quirk of Nevada caucus rules, lost the delegate vote.

“A month ago, who would have thought this would be such a competitive race?” said Rebecca Lambe, the senior strategist for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the minority leader. “Nevada will either be a potential firewall or a potential tiebreaker.”

“It really is the first test there is of how effective you are going to be in mobilizing the Democratic coalition in a general election,” she said.

Sanders’ senior adviser, Tad Devine, said Monday that campaign workers from Iowa, where Sanders nearly tied Clinton, were being flown into Nevada to beef up a 90-person operation already in place. Clinton’s advisers declined to disclose the size of their paid staff here. Sanders began advertising here in early December; Clinton began in early January.

“It has become more competitive,” Devine said. Nevada, he added, presented a “fair test” of Sanders’ potential national appeal. “Now we are moving into a different region in the country, a much more diverse group of voters.”

The campaign unfurling here heading into the Feb. 20 caucuses could be instructive for reasons that go beyond Sanders’ ability to extend his demographic reach and the durability of Clinton’s second bid for the presidency.

Few states endured the degree of economic turmoil that racked Nevada during the recession. Vast tracts of housing developments were abandoned as the mortgage foreclosure crisis sent new homeowners fleeing, unemployment soared into the double digits and projects on the Las Vegas Strip were abandoned. The economy has turned around to a large extent. But memories of that brutal time endure and could create a political environment ripe for Sanders: His campaign has seized on the issues of income disparity and Wall Street abuses in the television advertisements airing here, which proved powerful in New Hampshire.

“My street, oh my God, almost every house on that block of 20 houses was hit,” said Elizabeth Meinhold, 59, a Clark County high school teacher who is supporting Sanders and said she believed Clinton stood for “the establishment.”

“We need real change and real movement in this country. Too much money is in the hands of a few,” she said, adding, “The last 40 years has been deregulation, tax cuts, Reaganism — it’s a disaster in my opinion.”

Less attention has been paid so far by the Republican presidential candidates to their party’s Nevada caucuses, which take place three days after the Democrats’ contest. Instead, Republicans have been focusing on their South Carolina primary, which is on the same day as the Democratic caucuses here.

Nevada is a relatively new battlefield for Democrats, but it will almost certainly be an important one in the general election. That there is little history to draw on, and that Nevada is a state of constantly shifting populations — people often come here seeking luck and opportunity, and leave if they find neither — means polling is scant and suspect.

The caucuses were championed by Reid in 2008 to increase Nevada’s influence in the nominating process, and to bolster its economy with the influx of campaign workers and journalists that comes with a competitive contest. In an interview, Reid said he was heartened that the Iowa and New Hampshire outcomes had heightened Nevada’s importance, and argued that this was appropriate, given the state’s diversity and interests.

“I am glad that we are not going to be overshadowed by what happens in New Hampshire and Iowa,” Reid said. “Why should a person’s ability to run for president be determined by New Hampshire and Iowa? They are not representative of America.”

Clinton has some noteworthy advantages. Her campaign is staffed by people steeped in Nevada politics, led by Mook, who is taking particular interest in the state.

“We built this campaign, starting when she announced in April, to win a competitive primary,” Mook said. “That means not taking anything for granted. That means building a real presence. Nevada is an important part of that strategy.”

And Bill Clinton is a popular figure here.

“In Nevada, the one big guy in the room is Bill Clinton,” Reid said. “He comes all the time. He has very good friends there. He plays golf. So Bernie has a real problem there.”

Indeed, when Bill Clinton campaigned for his wife here on a chilly evening before the first votes were cast in Iowa, people lined up for hours to see him.

“Las Vegas has been good to us,” he told the crowd. “Nevada has been good to us. You voted for me twice. We are very grateful.”

Ron Nelsen, 60, the owner of a garage door company, said he had always supported the Clintons and planned to again on Feb. 20.

“I like her vision of the country and health care and lifelong expertise in government,” he said. “Health care was my issue when Bill Clinton was elected the first time.”

But, as in Iowa, Sanders has arrived with a boom that has discomfited the Clinton campaign, opening 11 offices in the state (compared with seven for Hillary Clinton) and flooding television stations with advertisements. A recent debate-watching party was packed with supporters wearing red Sanders T-shirts. They cheered Sanders and hooted at Clinton.

When the lights came up during a commercial break, an organizer shouted, “Get on Twitter everybody! Tweet, tweet, tweet!”

Nevada permits same-day voter registration, a matter of special concern to Clinton since first-time caucus-goers flocked to Sanders in Iowa. And 30,000 Nevadans registered and voted on caucus day here in 2008, many of them brought in by Barack Obama.

“In 2008, I worked in the Obama campaign and we saw a lot of young people involved,” said Joan Kato, Sanders’ Nevada state director, as college students sprawled on the floor of her campaign office, using cellphones to call voters. “We are seeing it again.”

Emmy Ruiz, who is Clinton’s state director, said the complexities involved in organizing for any caucus would pose a challenge for Sanders since he started late.

“You cannot parachute in and run up the score in the caucus the same way you might be able to do in a primary,” she said. “This is what we have been preparing for.”

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said she was confident that Clinton, whom she supports, would be able to overcome a surge of new voters. Nevada remains “Clinton country,” she said.

Still, Titus said she was struck by the force of Sanders’ presence. “He’s making a race out of it,” she said. “He’s certainly going to get some votes.”