Democrats Face Tight Race in Nevada Contest

Thank you both for being with us.

Jon, let me begin with you. Let's start with those Republicans. Who is campaigning there? And what does it look like on the Republican side?

JON RALSTON, Political Reporter: Well, Mitt Romney is here today, Judy, and he's about the only one who's going to be here, outside of Ron Paul, who's paid some visits here, has a real following here, and has some TV ads. I think Ron Paul is going to make a decent showing on Saturday.

But this is Mitt Romney's to lose. There's going to be a poll released tomorrow that shows him 15 points ahead of the field. He's here today. One of his sons and his wife were here yesterday.

Romney has the only real organization in this state. As a Mormon in a place where a lot of Mormons live, he's got a lot of support here. I'd be shocked if he lost.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anjeanette Damon, what does the Republican race look like from Reno where you are?

ANJEANETTE DAMON, Reno Gazette-Journal: It's much the same. Mitt Romney is the only Republican candidate to build a very significant organization here.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, has garnered this really energetic crowd of volunteer supporters who have spent significantly on his behalf on both TV, radio, billboards. So he's going to surprise a lot of people, I think.

Whether or not he's as well organized throughout the state as Mitt Romney is remains to be seen on Saturday.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anjeanette, what are the issues, what are the factors driving Republican voters this time?

ANJEANETTE DAMON: This time, it's still, strangely enough -- the last poll that the Reno Gazette-Journal conducted showed that the war on terror, immigration, and the war in Iraq topped -- are on the top of the minds of Republican voters in this state.

Immigration is a really burning issue. When Republican officials, the congressmen and senators have town hall meetings in Nevada, Republicans are always talking about immigration.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Jon Ralston, what are you seeing? And the Republican view on immigration, tighten the borders, tighten controls?

JON RALSTON: Yes, and that is a very big issue here, Judy, and has been throughout the last year or two here. The legislature tried to do a few things. It was a big issue in the governor's race in 2006.

It is still a turnout driver for Republicans. The stronger you are on immigration, the better you're going to do.

Remember, it might be said that Ron Paul has the strongest position on immigration of almost all the Republican candidates. That's selling well here, too.

JON RALSTON: Well, it's all Obama, Clinton, and now Edwards. Edwards was thought to be out of it. A poll came out by Anjeanette's newspaper that showed it very close, 32 percent for Obama, 30 percent for Clinton, 27 percent for Edwards. So now he's campaigning very hard here.

He does have pockets of support, and I think he has support up in Anjeanette's area of the state.

But the Obama and Clinton blanketing of the state since the New Hampshire result has really been something. This state has never seen anything like it, Judy, with the number of appearances that they've made here, that surrogates have made here.

Bill Clinton is in town today making appearances, including with Magic Johnson. You have Michelle Obama here making appearances with John Kerry. I think we'll probably take Bill Clinton over Michelle Obama, and probably Magic Johnson over John Kerry, too.

But, still, there's a lot going on here, Judy. The intensity here is unlike anything I've seen in about 20 years of covering politics here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anjeanette, the NewsHour was in Nevada for a week back in November, just when all of this was getting started, but it sounds like there is a lot more interest now on the part of the Democrats in this race?

ANJEANETTE DAMON: Absolutely. I think actually voters on both sides have really started to pay attention and engage in the last two or three weeks. It's hard to keep up, as Jon said, with all the candidate visits, town halls, rallies, surrogates that are coming.

Voters in northern Nevada often have several events a day to choose from. John Edwards drew a big crowd last night. President Clinton has been here. They're touring a small town outside of Reno that was hit by a levee break flood that destroyed a lot of homes. They've been going there and visiting the cleanup workers.

So voters have had a lot to really get them engaged. They're starting to pay attention. And I hear now from local county officials, actually, that they're starting to bank on higher turnout than they had expected, and they're trying to wriggle a few last-minute details to accommodate that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So there were, what, about 9,000 statewide last time. They're expecting more than that this time?

ANJEANETTE DAMON: Oh, absolutely. This is the first time -- it's hard to gauge exactly what the turnout's going to be because there's not been an event like this in the state's history.

Last time, there was about 9,000, but there are no campaigns active here. And the parties did little effort, other than getting kind of their normal activists out to caucus.

This time on the Democratic side, we have three very organized campaigns that are working to turn people out, as well as the party has spent a year-long effort educating people and getting them to turn out.

So whether or not we see turnout as high as Senator Reid has predicted -- 100,000 is unlikely, not that many more participated in the 2006 Democratic primary. But we would see definitely more than 9,000, maybe as close as 30,000 or 40,000 people.

JON RALSTON: Well, if those caucus sites had been erased, which is what the lawsuit sought to do, that would have diminished the impact of the culinary union. Essentially, that part of the delegate plan was written for their workers so they wouldn't have to leave work.

It was agreed upon, of course, by the casino bosses, too, who don't want those people going off property for two or three hours to get to their precinct sites and then caucus. They wanted them there.

This was all agreed on. And it was only after Barack Obama got the endorsement that questions were raised about this.

Listen, their impact is going to be significant. It's not just a number that you mentioned, 60,000. It's that it's going to be a low turnout election.

Harry Reid I still think is living in fantasy land if he thinks 100,000 people are going to turn out for this caucus. But it's not going to be anywhere near 9,000 either.

You split the difference, I think they have a pretty successful caucus, Judy. And think about it: The culinary union can turn out a significant number of their members to caucus for Barack Obama. That's a huge impact.

But the real question is, will the workers go with who the leaders tell them to caucus for?