NV-02: Nevada Ready to Rumble

by mcjoan [courtesy of Daily Kos]

On a gorgeous late September day, I joined Jill Derby in Reno to catch up on her campaign, spend a little time going door-to-door and find out about the extensive coordinated Democratic campaign northern Nevada is experiencing.

Derby made Daily Kos news earlier this week when brownsox posted some encouraging number for the second time challenger from a Reno Gazette-Journal poll conducted by Research 2000.

Research 2000. 10/3-5. Likely voters. MoE 5% (8/18-20 numbers)

You might remember Derby, introduced here in October, 2006 as the "cowgirl candiate."

Derby's great-grandfather settled in Nevada at the turn of the century and that's where her family has remained. She's running in an open seat in Nevada's second district, basically everything north and west of Las Vegas.

Derby isn't just a cowgirl, though. After college, she traveled extensively in North Africa, India, Asia, and the Middle East. She lived in Saudi Arabia, trekked the Himalayas, and visited the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat in the jungles of Cambodia. Her travels inspired her to earn masters and doctoral degrees at the University of California, Davis in cultural anthropology with an emphasis on Middle Eastern studies. She has served as Regent for the University and Community College System of Nevada since 1988.

That makes her a "career politician," if you listen to the ads of her opponent, the incumbent Dean Heller. Republicans will never get irony. In this R+8 district, on a shoestring 2006 campaign, Heller beat Derby by just five points. In 2004, Bush carried the district by 16 points. This is some deep Red territory we're talking about.

And a lot of it. Nevada's 2nd Congressional district is the largest after Alaska and Wyoming. It encompasses the entire state, except for the core of Las Vegas. That's what it looked like in 2006, over there on the right. Everything north of the squiggly line at the bottom is what Jill is having to cover. A vast expanse of red surrounding the tiny blue island of Las Vegas. That vast expanse takes some time and effort to reach. While the majority of the population for the district is in Reno and Vegas suburbs, there are mining towns and ranching communities all throughout, and those are where the most reliable voters are. Some of those counties reached 80 percent turnout in 2006. They've been reliably Republican voters for decades, but Derby has to make inroads there to stay competitive.

It helps that she's fourth generation Nevada. It helps that everyone knows the Flying Flapjack Ranch in Lovelock, the family ranch. The topic of the ranch came up at least three or four times while I was with Jill, and that was in the urban center of Reno. You can bet that out there in the rest of the state, that's a factor. Maybe it's because making a living in such an inhospitable place has always been a marginal proposition. You've got to be pretty damned determined to scratch out a profit and make a home and future in a place as dry and as empty as most of Nevada is. So there's a real kinship among those whose people have done just that. She and Obama are also getting some high profile and extremely relevant support out in the rural counties. Jon Tester is absolutely the kind of spokesman they need with these folks.

So Derby's game plan is to make enough inroads in the rural counties to stay competitive, while making damned sure that every Democratic voter in Washoe County in the north (Reno-Sparks) and the Vegas suburbs turns out. She has an army of volunteers working the phones and the doorsteps. Here she is, in fact, with a core group of her volunteers who gave up their Sunday afternoon to make phone calls.

Jill has plenty of volunteers dedicated just to her campaign. But she's one of the luckier Red state challengers in the country in running in a critical swing state. That means that vast resources from the Obama Campaign for Change (CfC) in the form of volunteers is there, on the ground in the key swing county--Washoe. When I watched the Nevada caucus back in January, I was in Washoe, and saw then the enthusiasm for getting rid of the Republicans with a handful of Republicans among them. The Republican and Democratic caucuses were held on the same day and in the same venues, Dems following the Republicans and Dems having on the spot registration. So if someone wanted to spend their day at it, they could caucus with the Republicans, hang around while the new Dem crew set up, reregister and caucus again. I saw a handful of folks do just that, mostly Ron Paul supporters who ended up going for Obama, who easily won Washoe.

The CfC, which is recruiting volunteers like mad from northern California, is coordinating with local Democratic campaigns. So every voter identification and lit drop they do for Obama includes identification and lit for Derby. That's tens of thousands of contacts made in the state, and a high percentage of them in Washoe. Here's Jill talking to a group of CfC volunteers about why she's running for Congress. (Forgive the wobbling, it was an excited crowd and there was just a little bit of jostling going on!)

Obama and Derby both have a very good shot at turning that vast expanse of Red Blue this election. Nevada has been hit harder by the foreclosure crisis than just about any other state. Both Las Vegas and Reno have seen massive increases in the homeless population over the year, and both cities have had to figure out how to manage large tent city populations, providing water and sanitation and public safety to these mushrooming communities. That's not just economic unease, it's economic disaster looming in front of Nevadans on a regular basis.

The economy has helped Obama open up a seven point lead in the state as a whole, according to Research 2000. Democrats have had fertile ground in Nevada, and even in this district. The voter registration numbers prove it. In the 2006 election, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 171,874 to 124,008 in the district. As of last month, Democrats have picked up 25,832 new voters in the district. The Republicans, just 3,844.

Those who had a chance to meet Jill at Netroots Nation know that she's the real deal. The combination of her deep Nevada cowgirl roots and her impressive resume make her a perfect fit for this district. She can represent their past, but is sharp enough and experienced enough to lead them into the future. She gets mad props for being one of those candidates from a very Republican district to even show at Netroots Nation, to reach out to a community where not everyone is going to agree with her, and to open herself up to the inevitable Republican attack. Everyone knows cowgirls have some moxie, and Jill proves it.

I'll leave you with a snippet from that beautiful September morning to inspire you through the next three weeks. To you, from Reno:

Win!

On the Web:
Jill Derby for Congress
Volunteer by registering to virtual phone bank
My Silver State interviews Jill
Nevada bloggers ActBlue page