Las Vegas

Like many structures in Las Vegas, the angular, ultramodern Rancho High School on the city's working-class northeast side looks like it was designed, built and airdropped onto the desert sometime last week. On Saturday, January 19, at 11 am, the building played host to five Democratic precinct caucuses, the first of their kind in the state's history.

In 2006 the Democrats, looking to capitalize on electoral opportunities out West and to diversify the early electorate, granted Nevada a coveted early spot on the calendar. But since the party originally intended that Nevada precede New Hampshire, the state couldn't stage a primary without threatening the tender ego of Granite Staters. So the DNC decided to import the complicated Iowa caucus model instead. (The state has had caucuses in the past, countywide and late in the cycle, but they were very sparsely attended.) Jayson Sime, who helped run the Iowa caucuses in 2004, moved to Las Vegas a year ago to start building the infrastructure from scratch to make it all work. "It's like planning 1,763 weddings," he told me, "and they all have to go off at the same time."

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