When Nevada Holds an Ace

Thirty-six million Californians were left out of the presidential horse race, all but ignored by two candidates who focused their time and ad dollars on the swing states. But plenty of high-stakes action, as always, could be had in the state next door.

When Bryan Allison returned to his Las Vegas home Monday from a long weekend, he found eight voicemails from famous people -- including John Kerry, Bill Clinton and Laura Bush, none of whom he’s ever met. It was an unaccustomed experience in a state whose five electoral votes can usually be reliably counted in the Republican column.

“Battleground” is a word seldom applied to the largely empty state of Nevada over the last 140 years, since Republicans conferred premature statehood on this Ecuador-sized chunk of sand, silver, gravel and kitty-litter clay in order to get its three valuable electoral votes in 1864. So important was that statehood event -- “Battle Born,” says the state flag -- that preelection Monday remains a statewide school holiday.

For months, Nevada’s 2.25 million citizens, less than 1% of the nation’s total, were bombarded by both sides -- literature, ads, phone calls, visits. Clinton was there Friday, Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday. Both President Bush and Sen. Kerry often flew in, like the more than 32 million other visitors each year, all gambling on winning something to take back home.

Nevada has long been the fastest-growing state in the union, with 97,000 new jobs since Bush won its then-four electoral votes in 2000. This rapid population agglomeration from all directions, including tax-fleeing California businesses and workers, is fast making Nevada more culturally diverse than other parts of the sprawling Southwest -- spurring its political shift toward the Democrats. In part, Nevada’s new political prominence is a reflection of the United States’ continuing westward population movement and provides an opportunity to explain uniquely Western issues when national candidates are most inclined to listen.

In Spanish, las vegas means meadows or fertile fields; certainly the city has recently grown a healthy crop of new voters. Las Vegas’ Clark County, home to seven of 10 Nevadans, had 520,000 registered voters in April. Today, it has 685,000. Thanks to an extensive early-voting drive -- residents could vote at almost any grocery store -- 321,000 voted before election day.

Nevada, still 87% federally owned, enjoys all the new political attention, even when calls come during dinner. “We should be important here,” said Otto Linton, an ex-Clevelander turned Nevada-chauvinist.

“You know,” added Allison, a Nevada native who runs travel website Vegas.com, “being a small state without an important primary, we felt on the fringe of national elections. It’s cool to be so involved.”

Cool, maybe, but such things are fleeting. After listening to all the famous voices on his answering machine Monday, he erased them.