Jon Ralston: Pressure's on in Nevada for candidates and state
Coming soon on the presidential circuit is a state that looks and feels like America.
Welcome to the Nevada portion of our quadrennial insanity.
Yes, some of the Republicans will first sojourn in South Carolina, which holds its GOP caucus three days before Silver State Republicans, who vote on Feb. 23. But they will soon return to The We Matter State.
Nevada Democrats caucus on Feb. 20, so Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will descend on the state this week, along with national media types eager to roll the dice, gamble on the future and see which campaign craps out.
Oh, and say “Ne-vah-duh” instead of “Ne-va-duh.”
With chatter that this may be Nevada’s last cycle as an early state and that Colorado may take the First in the West mantle — what are the national Democratic and Republican parties smoking? — the pressure is on the state to shine. Or at least not be a national laughingstock. (See 2012, Nevada GOP, three days to count 33,000 votes.)
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This cycle in Nevada is even weirder than most, and that is a high bar to surmount. Consider:
The two most potent forces on each side, Gov. Brian Sandoval (sorry, Mr. Adelson) and the Culinary Union, are sitting out the caucus. Sandoval, who felt a loyalty to Rick Perry last time because the Texas governor helped him in 2010, has been more cautious this cycle. The governor told me he leans toward someone “with executive experience,” and I don’t think he meant someone in the executive suite at Trump Tower. He would have loved to endorse Jeb, and still may, but an endorsement in hand is not worth one for a Bush (at least not yet).
The Culinary, after betting early on Barack Obama in 2008 and then seeing Hillary Clinton win the caucus, is also playing it more coy this cycle. But I still think the pressure will be immense in the next 10 days for the formidable grass-roots force to stop being a wallflower and get on the dance floor.
No reliable recent polling exists for Nevada, which is infuriating mostly for those of us who like to predict election outcomes or, at the very least, sound like we know what we are talking about. Polling for the GOP caucus, which takes place in a four-hour window on a Tuesday evening with different voting times in different counties inside that 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot, essentially is useless. The Democrats are caucusing on a Saturday, but unlike the Republicans, they have same-day registration, which makes accuracy more difficult. I still think Hillary has a slight edge over Bernie Sanders because of her superior staff and appeal to minorities, but it could be close. And on the GOP side, the only three organized campaigns are Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, but I don’t doubt they could all get Trumped. (Washoe County GOP Chairman Adam Khan said last week on “Ralston Live” that he does not believe Donald Trump can win the state because of a lack of a ground game.)
The TV spending so far has been mostly on the Democratic side. And the big news Tuesday is that Sanders just added a million dollars to his buy, with his total ($3.6 million) now doubling Clinton’s total. (She will have to match him to ensure she remains competitive.)
On the GOP side, Marco Rubio and his Super PAC, Conservative Solutions, continue to dominate, with $1.2 million spent. Only the Jeb Bush super PAC, Right to Rise, is close at $707,000, although I am reliably told the Ted Cruz super PAC, Keep The Promise, is about to come in heavily on the statewide airwaves. Good news for Nevada commercial TV stations: You are about to make a lot of money.
The intensity on both sides is ratcheted up. The Democratic caucus in 2008 was vicious between Clinton and Obama. But I’m not sure I have ever seen such a pitched battle for one demographic as those two battling over the Hispanic vote, including putting a student college leader in the crossfire. The Hispanic vote was only about 14 percent of the caucus turnout in ’08, but in a close race it could be pivotal. The demographics of the Democratic electorate here – about 40 percent non-white – show just how different Nevada is from Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton shamelessly pandered for the Latino vote starting last May while some months later Sanders discovered he might need more than white votes to win. On the GOP side, the intense rivalry between potential governors Adam Laxalt, the attorney general who endorsed Cruz, and Mark Hutchison, the lieutenant governor who is with Rubio, also has been increasing in recent days, Laxalt has been campaigning across rural Nevada for Cruz while Hutchison has made get-out-the-vote calls to Iowa and New Hampshire.
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I have already outlined a 10-point test for candidates who come here seeking favor from voters whose interests they may not understand as well as those first two states. But those talking points work for staff and media, too.
So bring on your gambling clichés, your Eastern-centric haughtiness and your you-don’t-matter-as-much-as-Iowa-and-New-Hampshire notions. The campaign is about to come to a place that actually looks like America and feels like America, from Reno to Elko to Vegas. The days of white and poses are over.
Welcome to Nevada.
Jon Ralston, who has covered Nevada politics for more than a quarter-century, blogs at RalstonReports.com and hosts the statewide daily PBS show Ralston Live. This column first appeared in the Reno Gazette-Journal.
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