Clinton targets must-win Hispanics to keep Nevada blue
LAS VEGAS - Jerry Clyde, a Service Employees International Union member, walked his turf under a remorseless sun, rustling up votes for Hillary Clinton last weekend in one of those instant subdivisions of nearly identical stucco homes.
LAS VEGAS - Jerry Clyde, a Service Employees International Union member, walked his turf under a remorseless sun, rustling up votes for Hillary Clinton last weekend in one of those instant subdivisions of nearly identical stucco homes.
"It's a responsibility for me," said Clyde, 51, a social worker from Whittier, Calif., who hopes to inspire the children he works with to get involved. "I wasn't taught how important it is to vote. Politics affects your life. I'm working the doors to help kids learn."
Democrats are pouring ground troops into Nevada, targeting Hispanics, Asian Americans, and millennials. The state is the epicenter of an emerging majority-minority electorate that fueled President Obama's two victories in the traditionally Republican interior West.
So Clyde and about 200 fellow SEIU members knocked on 10,000 Nevada doors on one of the last weekends before Election Day, part of that vast machinery.
The westernmost battleground state is still considered a toss-up with a little over two weeks left. For one thing, 71 percent of white residents 25 and over lack a college degree - the core of Republican Donald Trump's base.
"I love the uneducated," Trump joked when he won the state's GOP caucuses in February.
As elsewhere, the real estate developer is outgunned by Clinton's side in the alchemy of mixing state-of-the art technology and data analytics to old-fashioned phone banks, community organizing, and door knocking. Team Trump has a more centralized approach, relying on the Republican National Committee and his anti-elite nationalist message to drive voters to the polls.
In Nevada, the minority share of voters climbed from 20 percent in 2004 to 33 percent in 2012, and registration trends indicate it could go higher this year. Obama's wins in Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico were due mainly to minority voters; most whites voted Republican.
Polls of the state have climbed and dipped like a roller coaster in 2016. Clinton is leading by 4.2 percentage points in the Real Clear average of surveys. The latest poll, by Monmouth University, found her with 47 percent to 40 percent for Trump. She extended her lead by expanding support among minority voters, particularly men, and younger voters.
Clinton needs a big turnout from groups whose participation is inconsistent.
"It is these low-propensity voters who turned out four years ago that you have to put in that extra effort to get them to come out," said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray. "There was a point last month where it looked like that was going to be difficult, but it's now coming together."
In 2014, only 29 percent of Nevada voters turned out, the lowest percentage in the battleground states, and Republicans took control of both houses of the legislature, giving them the upper hand in all branches of state government for the first time since 1929. Hispanic voters, for instance, underperformed, with a 24 percent turnout.
But the potential power of Hispanics is evident, growing from 101,000 registered voters in 2008 to about 250,000 now, a third of the state's electorate, according to an analysis by the New America Project, a think tank and Democratic strategy group dedicated to increasing minority votes to put former GOP strongholds in play for Democrats.
Hispanics had a 78 percent turnout rate in the presidential year of 2008 and 72 percent four years later in Nevada. They also mustered 53 percent in 2010, a big reason Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid survived the tea party wave.
"History suggests that if these voters go to the polls, and you have the money invested in the field operation to encourage them, it would be very hard for Trump to make up the ground," Murray said.
Reid has built up a powerful Democratic machine over the last two decades, harnessing the state's labor unions, cultivating Hispanic support, and getting a Democratic caucus for Nevada in the early stages of the 2008 nominating race, which led to a spike in new voter registrations from people attracted to the Clinton vs. Obama contest. Democrats have maintained that registration edge.
The party also is targeting Asian American voters, the fastest-growing minority group. Various progressive groups have registered 12,000 new Asian voters in Nevada, largely Filipinos. Along with Hispanics and African Americans, minorities could make up to 50 percent of the state's electorate this year.
"I think they absolutely will turn out," said Jill Hanauer, a Denver-based Democratic strategist who is president of Project New America. "We have the raw numbers to carry the state, and an intensity thanks to Donald Trump. He is the best mobilizer we have."
Racio Saenz, executive vice president of the SEIU, said the union has 400,000 members who are immigrants. It is targeting states where Hispanic voters can make the difference: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida.
"This is very personal," Saenz said. "We know that you can't get to the White House without these states, and you can't win them without the Latino vote."
Trump supporters have their own passion. Republican Jared Stevens of Las Vegas likes the mogul's promises to tighten enforcement of immigration laws and end bad trade deals that cost jobs. He is suspicious of recent media reports of women accusing Trump of assaulting them.
"Everything is so polarizing now," Stevens said. "Just being a Republican you are labeled a racist and misogynist. They've been doing it for years. And the thing that's really infuriating is the Republican Party is always ready to eat their own."
The Nevada GOP has been riven by internal feuds for years, and the party's Senate candidate, Rep. Joe Heck, retracted his Trump endorsement after the release of the video in which he boasted in vulgar terms of sexually assaulting women.
Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the state attorney general, holds about a 2-point lead over Heck.
Reid is retiring, so the seat is open, the GOP's best chance to pick up a Senate seat.
"The question is what happens down-ballot," Hanauer said. Democrats have a shot at flipping control of the state Senate, now with a 11-10 Republican majority.
In Las Vegas' West Sahara subdivision last Sunday, Yolanda Roybal heard plenty of negative opinions of Trump.
"They say Trump will start World War III, he's unstable, he's hateful to everyone, he doesn't respect women, and he doesn't pay his workers," said Roybal, who works in the finance department of a Los Angeles County hospital and said she's seen Obamacare help many patients.
"My 8-year-old granddaughter says she's scared of him," she said. "I think Trump has brought a lot of bad things into the world."
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@tomfitzgerald