MINNEAPOLIS — Sen. Amy Klobuchar has criss-crossed Nevada this week ahead of that state’s precinct caucuses, hoping to capitalize on her strong showing in New Hampshire’s primary.
She’s held a series of rallies and forums aimed at catching the eyes of Nevadans who planned to vote early.
And on Friday, Klobuchar has stops planned in Elko and Reno, both cities in the northern half of the state. The Minnesotan has supplemented her ground game with TV advertising in two languages.
At the same time her attention has been divided with travel to other states set to vote in the Super Tuesday primaries March 3, fully aware of her underdog status in a field dominated by more well-known names.
“We have staff now in every single super Tuesday state, we have actually been able to run full-time ads now here in Nevada,” she told Kristen Welker of NBC News.
“All of this momentum. You’ve got to seize on momentum, and you’ve got to keep going.”
Klobuchar spent part of Thursday campaigning and raising money in Colorado, one of 15 states holding presidential preference primaries on Super Tuesday. Her campaign also hired seven new staff members in Colorado.
Like most first-time presidential candidates that rely on traditional funding sources, Klobuchar focused on the four early primary states. Now she’s having to ramp up her campaign operations to be competitive in those Super Tuesday states.
At the Aurora event she got some laughs with a reference to how rough things were on the debate stage the night before.
"As you know we had a debate last night. I thought it would be nice to come to a place where everyone knows your name," Klobuchar said, smiling. "Where people maybe are nice to you?!"
NBC Nevada debate
Klobuchar headed into Wednesday night’s NBC debate in Nevada with high expectations, after receiving high marks for her performance in the CNN debate in New Hampshire Feb. 7.
But the night belonged to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who drew praise from analysts for her withering attacks on Michael Bloomberg over non-disclosure agreements he has made with former female employees.
Klobuchar was grilled by Telemundo personality Vanessa Hauc for not being able to name the current Mexican president -- Andrés Manuel López Obrador -- in a previous interview with Telemundo.
The Minnesotan said she had apologized for forgetting Obrador’s name, but cited her work on immigration reform in the US Senate and her early support of the new US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.
But Huac wouldn’t accept the explanation and continued to press her. Candidate Pete Buttigieg then joined the confrontation.
"You're literally part of the committee that's overseeing these things and were not able to speak to the first thing of the politics of the country to our south," said Buttigieg, who was standing next to Klobuchar on the debate stage
Klobuchar, who was visibly annoyed by his remarks, replied, “Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete? I said that I made an error. People sometimes forget names."
Senator Warren jumped in to defend Klobuchar, telling the audience that remembering names isn’t as essential as the policies candidates embrace when it comes to relations with Mexico and Central America.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar later sparred over whether her experience serving in the US Senate and winning statewide races in Minnesota qualified her for the presidency.
“Don't tell me about experience. What unites here is we want to win, and I think that we should put a proven winner in charge of the ticket,” Klobuchar asserted, pointing out Buttigieg – the former South Bend, Indiana mayor – had failed at his only run for statewide office.
“This is a race for president,” Buttigieg shot back. “If winning a race for senator in Minnesota translated directly to becoming president, I would have grown up under the presidency of Walter Mondale.”
Observers must wait to see if Wednesday night’s debate will change the dynamics of the Nevada race, or reshuffle the voters’ preferences ahead of the Saturday caucuses. High turnout is expected, but more than half of Nevada Democrats cast their ballots via early voting. It’s likely a sizeable number made their choices before the NBC debate.
Getting out the vote
Nevada is more demographically diverse than the first two early presidential primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Nearly 30 percent of the state’s population is of Latino or Hispanic heritage.
Klobuchar’s Spanish language TV ad in Nevada is entitled “Bienestar” or “wellness” in English.
The narrator can be heard saying, in Spanish, “Amy will bring back to the White House the respect it deserves, will fight to give us better health care, better prices on our prescription medicines, and the best education for our loved ones.”
At one appearance before a Latino audience in Nevada, Klobuchar said she was renamed “Elena” in school Spanish classes because she couldn’t roll her r’s. In other words, she couldn’t make the trilled r sound when pronouncing words with a double r in them.
Earlier Wednesday, Klobuchar was engulfed by reporters and photographers as she visited the picket lines at the Palms Resort and Casino, where members of the Culinary Workers Union and other unions are battling for a contract.
She was one of several top Democrats who came to show their support for the picketers. Employees of the Palms and Stations Casinos voted to join a union last year but have not yet been able to get a contract with the billionaire owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitt.
Klobuchar surrogates have been out in force as well in the Silver State. Sen. Tina Smith campaigned on behalf of her fellow senator Thursday at a Washoe County Democrats event in Reno. Klobuchar’s husband John Bessler appeared at a canvassing kickoff event in Las Vegas.
State Sen. Melisa Franzen of Edina appeared Thursday at a Latinos in Action event in Vegas and also spoke to Latino high school students at Valley High School. Sen. Franzen was born and raised in Puerto Rico.
The Amy for America campaign announced it brought in $12 million in new donations in the aftermath of Klobuchar’s surprise third place finish in New Hampshire. Earlier in the week, the newly formed Kitchen-Table-Conversations super PAC began running ads on behalf of Klobuchar in Nevada and on YouTube.
In the meantime, the Minnesotan has picked up endorsements from more newspapers in Super Tuesday states, including the Houston Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times.
Most editorial boards have touted her electability amid reputation for reaching across the aisle in a deeply partisan political landscape to get bills passed in the Senate.
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