Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada: Key sphere of GOP influence?

Mitt Romney

Leila Navidi

Early 2012 Republican presidential favorite Mitt Romney speaks at the International Franchise Association convention Monday at the MGM Grand.

Mitt Romney at IFA

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, speaks during the International Franchise Association's annual convention at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Monday, February 14, 2011. Launch slideshow »
Click to enlarge photo

Voters look for their precincts on a map during the Republican presidential caucus at Green Valley High School in Henderson Saturday, January 19, 2008.

Nevada’s presidential caucuses are among the nation’s opening quartet of political litmus tests, earning the Silver State what should be a prized berth of influence as an early selector of front-runner status.

But to really reap the rewards of the post, it’s incumbent on the state to convince key candidates that Nevada’s caucuses are more than just an afterthought to Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primaries, which have the time-honored tradition of running first and second.

Nevada’s best pitch may simply be: We’re your first shot at what’s not traditional.

After four decades of primaries and caucuses, Iowa and New Hampshire are fairly known entities: Iowa is big on religious conservatives; evangelicals tend to do well there. New Hampshire is full of economic conservatives; low taxes there are a good line. But since those lines were drawn, a new wave of Republicanism has rocked the balance of the party; and in 2010, few places felt the rumblings so acutely as Nevada.

“Your Republicans managed to nominate Sharron Angle. The perception is that it’s really a hotbed of Tea Party activity ... and all the candidates feel obliged to pay some fealty to the Tea Party,” said Thomas Mann, a political expert with the Brookings Institution. “There isn’t going to be any moderate Republican electorate out there (this cycle), it’s just degrees of conservatism ... and my own personal guess is that Nevada will be one of the contested events.”

If rife conservatism alone were the ticket to national prominence, Nevada’s caucuses would have been set long ago; Sarah Palin was the first of the major national names being floated for the country’s top office to take a tour through the state.

But that doesn’t appear to be who the state party apparatus is wooing. Talk caucuses with state GOP Chairman Mark Amodei, and he mentions names like Romney, Barbour, Pawlenty — all of whom, he says, are showing an interest on the ground.

“We’re very healthy in terms of front-runner names looking to re-create their machines,” Amodei said. “As long as Mitt Romney is playing, you’re going to get maintenance at least” from other candidates.

Romney won Nevada’s caucuses handily in 2008, with the help of a loyal Mormon voting bloc, which turned out 94 percent in favor of him. But the Nevada GOP is being careful to promote the idea that the race is still wide open, a key factor in choosing to split delegates proportionally, instead of letting the winner take them all.

“If somebody perceives someone’s going to win the state, they’re not going to mess around if there’s no delegates to get,” Amodei said.

Part of the philosophy that goes into slating early primaries and caucuses comes from the desire to strike a balance: geographically, and among the known factions of the party. That’s part of how Nevada got into the early mix: It represents the fast-growing and fast-diversifying West.

“In New Hampshire, independents can choose which party they want to vote in, so it tends to produce a more moderate-type electorate,” said Anthony Corrado, a professor of political science at Colby College and expert on elections. “In Iowa, you have a more traditional mainstream Republicanism.”

But while the Tea Party is certainly the best known among the emerging strains of Republicanism with roots in Nevada, the state’s list is longer than one tour de force bloc.

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Josh Romney, a son of Mitt Romney, speaks to reporters during the Republican presidential caucus at Green Valley High School in Henderson on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. The caucus process bewildered many voters.

Nevada’s GOP electorate is an oddball in many ways: It features staunch libertarians, but also an above-average complement of urbanites, hailing from populations centered in Clark and Washoe counties.

Nevada’s GOP also boasts some of the country’s most isolationist Americans alongside one of its largest concentrations of Hispanic immigrants — a group that Republicans are trying to push to the right in 2012. (In Nevada, about 30 percent of Hispanic voters vote GOP.)

And even the state’s specially-interested bloc isn’t necessarily a lock in 2012: If former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman challenges Romney, it could divide the attention of Nevada’s sizable Mormon community, signaling to politicians that the LDS vote, for the first time, is up for grabs.

It’s still early, but other presumed contenders are beginning to darken doorsteps in and around Las Vegas, apparent opening moves to shore up the basis for future campaigns. Romney appeared this week to give a speech to a conference of the International Franchise Association; next week, Minnesota’s governor and national GOP darling Tim Pawlenty is also coming to town.

State GOP operators are hoping visits like these inspire other candidates to follow suit — and voters throughout the state to sit up and take notice.

“It’s going to ripple right on down the ticket,” former Nevada Gov. Bob List said. “It motivates volunteers, it motivates people to think about the campaigns early. It brings people out.”

A good showing at the presidential caucuses, after all, is necessary not just to put on a convincing show for the nation, but also to build momentum for the down-ticket races, whose primaries won’t be decided until summer.

But Nevada’s GOP won’t just rely on trickling good vibes to coalesce a party that by its chairman’s own admission, “turned out the lights” between election cycles the past few years.

The GOP will conduct paid voter registration drives this year, and bank on the Western Regional Leadership Conference, scheduled to take place on the Strip in early November, to build up excitement about the Nevada caucuses scheduled a few months after.

Still, it’s a long way to go in less than a year.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. But the most recent example shows that it’s going to be a slog. When Democrats began their organizational process for the 2008 caucuses in 2006, they were doing it with the machine that had carried Harry Reid to a Senate victory in 2004, and would soon deliver the state for Barack Obama. Nevada Republicans don’t enjoy the same sort of momentum coming off the 2008 and 2010 elections.

With about a half-million dollars in the bank, they’ve also got a long way to go in terms of fundraising: Putting on the 2008 caucuses cost well over $1 million, and this time, with Obama not expected to draw a serious primary challenge, the GOP is going to be working on its own.

“It’s a race of a particular distance,” Nevada Democratic strategist Dan Hart said. “The Democrats had a longer time to run that race — so the Republicans are going to have to run a lot faster.”

Acknowledging the circumstances, Republicans say nonetheless, they’re ready.

“The fact that we’re financially solvent right now, we are much further ahead at being viable than we ever were in the last decade,” Amodei said.

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