LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Hillary Clinton can’t beat a Republican in Arkansas, but she’s not there for a general-election battle.

The former first lady has returned to her onetime home state to court Democratic convention-goers, knowing every southern delegate could prove crucial to ending Bernie Sanders’ run.

“This is about delegates, it isn’t about electoral votes,” said Skip Rutherford, a longtime Clinton friend and the dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. “There will be a completely different strategy when it comes to electoral votes.”


If it gets that far. With her challenger gaining ground in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton’s team knows she needs to mobilize her family’s network of southern supporters and ensure the race for the party’s nomination does not extend beyond March 1.

Part of this involves convincing Democrats in an increasing conservative part of the country to see her as the only viable option against a Republican. So she’s contrasting herself and her positions not with Sanders but with the GOP contenders.

But local officials caution that her support in Arkansas doesn’t guarantee primary victory. Clinton doesn’t have any paid staffers on the ground there. Her network of longtime connections is still active, which gives her an advantage over Sanders, but Monday’s visit is only her second to the state since she announced her candidacy in April in a region that the Brooklyn braintrust sees as critical to her win.

There is no shadow organization of former Bill Clinton operatives paving her road to victory in Arkansas. But some pieces have been falling into place. The campaign has a joint fundraising agreement with the state party, for example, and the Arkansas Travelers — a group of Arkansans that traveled to New Hampshire to knock on doors for Bill in 1992 — is preparing to travel around the country once again.

“The Clintons have 40 years of history here in Arkansas, and that includes being close personal friends with the chairman” of the state party, said HL Moody of the Democratic Party of Arkansas. “So is there official contact? Not necessarily on a daily basis. But do old friends talk? Sure."

Sanders hasn’t visited Arkansas at all, but he has a passionate and growing group of backers in Little Rock, according to local Democratic officials and campaign veterans. And where he has added his voice to such networks of supporters, his poll numbers have climbed.

Both Rutherford and Sheila Bronfman, head of the Arkansas Travelers, said they had yet to hear of much Sanders campaign activity in the area, but each reported seeing excitement on Facebook or Twitter — where the Sanders campaign has been planning to build its presence first. And the occasional Sanders yard sign or bumper sticker dotted Little Rock on Monday.

“We have to be strategic about our resource allocation. She’s got long-standing ties there,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’ chief strategist. “I don’t think we’re going to lay off there. Ultimately in every state that has a primary or caucus we’ll have a presence, including Arkansas. But we’re still building."

“In a place like Arkansas, Bernie can win delegates and break the threshold,” he added. “But a lot of that depends on how he does in Iowa and New Hampshire."

Even if Clinton speeds past Sanders on Super Tuesday, Arkansas’ use to Clinton ends then. The state leans more Republican every election cycle -- its congressional delegation is all-Republican for the first time ever and Arkansas’ governor managed Bill Clinton’s impeachment as a member of Congress. Already, recent polling puts Clinton at a significant disadvantage against a generic Republican (33 percent to 50 percent) in the state, which hasn’t supported a Democratic presidential candidate named something other than William Jefferson Clinton since 1976.

“While several states in the south — Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia — are competitive and becoming increasingly competitive, Arkansas is moving in a different direction,” explained Rutherford, pointing to population growth in the state’s north as a reason, and likening it to Kansas and Nebraska.

Clinton’s interest in the state is clear on the campaign trail — freshman Senator Tom Cotton is one of her only frequent Republican targets who isn’t running for the White House. He won his seat from Mark Pryor, a Democrat and the son of another Arkansas Democratic senator.

With the local state party working to reform itself after devastating losses in 2014, and with a young Democratic candidate (former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge) emerging to challenge Republican Sen. John Boozman, Arkansas Democrats see signs of life – not that it will matter in time for November 2016.

Clinton’s trips back to Little Rock certainly help that long-term resuscitation project, but more importantly, they help her build goodwill among delegates. “After the last election, we were in debt, we lost most of our staff, and there was real concern about what we were going to do going forward,” said Moody. “We got a really huge boost in July when Hillary Clinton came and spoke to our Jefferson-Jackson dinner and raised us $500,000 and didn’t ask for any for herself."

“If she’s willing to take time away from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to come down here and help us keep the lights on,” he said, “that speaks to her commitment.”