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March 29, 2024

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After visit, what’s next for Bernie Sanders in Nevada?

More Bernie rally

Steve Marcus

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders arrives with his wife Jane, left, for a rally at the Cheyenne Sports Complex, in North Las Vegas Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015.

Bernie Sanders Holds Rally in NLV

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane arrive for a rally at the Cheyenne Sports Complex, in North Las Vegas Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015. Launch slideshow »

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders got some bad news Sunday three hours before his rally in North Las Vegas. His Nevada campaign director, Jim Farrell, resigned from his post because of family issues.

Campaign staffers were in disbelief. But by the start of the rally they already had a replacement, Joan Kato, and shooed off any notions that the campaign would suffer.

Sanders, the Vermont senator who spoke in front of about 3,000 people didn’t mention the hiccup publicly and kept his message on focus: He will fight for immigration reform at all costs.

The ability to pave over a potential campaign disaster shows that the Sanders campaign, which arrived to Nevada in October, is in it for the long haul nationwide. The campaign has made a half-dozen appearances in Las Vegas since he announced his presidential bid and ended a two-day stint unrolling his immigration reform plan this week.

He is battling Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to be the party’s nominee and needs to win it with the Latino voting bloc — a group that will likely push either candidate to the victory circle in the state’s caucus Feb. 20.

The Sanders campaign knows it will be a tough climb, but they aren’t backing away from the challenge. Here’s what to expect from the candidate in the next four months:

The introduction is over

The campaign has said that Latino voters just don’t know Sanders, the 74-year-old Democratic socialist and son of a Polish immigrant who has spent decades advocating for free health care and organized labor. But it’s targeted them in Las Vegas as the touchstone for winning the Democrat nomination. Now that he’s made the introduction he has to begin to get voters off the fence and into his camp.

His message aims to win those voters by linking four distinct messages — upending income inequality, ending Super PACs, reforming immigration policy and keeping minority youth out of prisons and in schools. In the last week, Sanders has done interviews on Spanish-language TV, bought Spanish-language radio ads, spoke at a forum sponsored by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement and released a four-point plan outlining his immigration plan.

The Clinton campaign has been in Nevada six months longer than Sanders and has built relationships with the demographic Sanders is now trying to woo. But that doesn’t have his supporters here worried.

He’s behind but he can make it up, said Tick Segerblom, a state senator and Sanders’ Nevada campaign chairman.

“It is a miracle to get 3,000 people to rally on a cold Sunday night in North Las Vegas,” Segerblom said. “That doesn’t just happen. I guarantee Hillary couldn’t do that.”

What advocacy groups are saying

Sanders will have at least 10 Nevada campaign offices by the end of the month and has hired Latino grass-roots activists. Since speaking Sunday, the campaign says that its phones are ringing with interested local volunteers.

Nevadans who have been affected by the nation’s current immigration policies are showing interest in the Sanders campaign, said Laura Martin, associate director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada Action Fund, a Nevada-based advocacy group.

“While not all can vote, they all have a lot of influence and can register voters and get others to the polls,” Martin said.

Mary Lopez, an organizer with One America Votes, a Seattle-based group advocating for immigration reform, said the group is still waiting to give an endorsement.

“The Latino community is building power now,” she said. “It’s just the beginning.”

On the attack

Expect more ads delivering Sanders’ message on TV, radio, mailers and robocalls.

Sanders is forthright about his problem with the demographic, but he’s not going to let Clinton walk away with the voting bloc, said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at UNR.

“Clinton will counter in person and with surrogates,” Herzik said. “But what Sanders has to do is keep pushing his name into that group.”

Sanders also made it a point to bash GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump during both of his Las Vegas appearances. Expect more of that, too, Herzik said.

“Trump is helping the Democrats mobilize Latino voters,” he said.

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