What Went Down In The 2020 Nevada Caucuses

The Nevada Democratic Party is having its volunteers sign nondisclosure agreements. I know that this was also the case for some people who participated in the administration of the Iowa Caucuses, but obviously NDAs take on a more freighted meaning today given what a disaster the Iowa voting was. As a member of the media, I have to say, it never feels great to hear that a political party is trying to preemptively muzzle people who might be able to provide voters transparency on what goes well and what doesn’t.

One thing we’ve been mulling over here at FiveThirtyEight is whether Warren’s fiery debate performance on Wednesday might have shaken up the race in Nevada. So on Friday, I went to the Clark County Government Center to check out Warren’s last event before the caucuses on Saturday.

The sun was just beginning to set over the Las Vegas valley as I arrived. The center’s amphitheater was filling with Warren supporters and those curious to see her speak. And sure enough, Warren’s performance at Wednesday night’s debate was the topic of conversation.

Clark County commissioner Justin Jones, who spoke at the event, had previously endorsed Kamala Harris, but said he decided to publicly support Warren after the debate, because “she kicked butt.” Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, who has also endorsed Warren, took the stage after Jones and energized the crowd by praising Warren for how she went after Bloomberg during the debate: “You saw how she handled Mayor Bloomberg.”

Warren started off the evening lighthearted with jokes about her personal life but then waded into heavier topics like the housing crash and corruption. Nevada was one of the states hit particularly hard by the 2008 housing crisis, and Warren mentioned the story of Alfred Estrada, a man who lost his home in Nevada and whose story encouraged Warren to form the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren also made digs at Bloomberg regarding his previous remarks about minorities and at Sanders for his refusal to vote to end the filibuster in the Senate. She then fielded a few questions from the crowd before taking selfies with supporters. One came from a woman named Amy who was concerned about people thinking women couldn’t win elections. In response, Warren talked about defeating a popular Repbulican incumbent as a political newcomer in 2012. And in response to whether a woman can beat Trump, she said, “I don’t know about a woman, but Elizabeth Warren can beat Donald Trump.” Someone in the crowd said, “atta girl!”

Understanding the field organizational strategies of the campaigns in Nevada’s caucuses starts with one fact: Nearly three-fourths of Nevadans live in Clark County and the Las Vegas metro area. As such, every campaign has located at least half of their offices there. With so many voters in one location, it makes less sense to branch out all over the state, and the highest-polling candidates have far fewer offices overall than in the previous contests.

That said, five of the six highest-polling candidates have offices in Reno, which is in Washoe County, home to just over 15 percent of the state’s population. Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren also each opened offices in Elko, population approximately 21,000, in the sparsely populated northeast area of the state.

There are a few differences worth watching, however. Sanders and Buttigieg each opened additional offices in northern Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. Sanders’s is east of Reno in Sparks (population approximately 100,000), while Buttigieg’s is in Fallon (population approximately 9,000) in sparsely populated Churchill County. Sanders may be looking to appeal to Hispanic and Latino voters, who make up 29 percent of Sparks’ population. (Steyer also has an office there.) It’s unclear why Buttigieg opened an office in such a small town, but it could be part of a broader rural strategy: He also has an office in Pahrump at the southern tip of Nye County in the 4th Congressional District, the only campaign office in that town or county.