PARADISE, Nevada — Deval Patrick, a late entrant into the Democratic presidential field, hopes that voters will like him once they get to know him. In Nevada, many voters are open to backing the former Massachusetts governor — if they heard more from him.
“It’s not a fool’s errand,” Patrick told reporters Sunday in Nevada, home to the third 2020 Democratic nominating contest, the Feb. 22 caucuses. “I respect that you are skeptical. And I hope you respect when I prove you wrong.”
In a volatile period for the Democratic primary, with no one candidate a clear front-runner, Patrick, 63, joins lower-tier candidates who insist that current leaders in primary polls will not necessarily be the nominee. About only a third of voters in a recent New York Times/Sienna College poll said they have settled on which candidate to support.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday discouraged reporters from writing off candidates, including Patrick, even though there are fewer than 100 days until the Nevada caucuses.
“It’s way too early to start crossing people off the list,” Reid said to a Democratic audience in his home state, adding that Patrick is “a very fine man and a great worker in Massachusetts.”
In addition to limited time to build a campaign infrastructure and make upcoming primary debate stages, one of Patrick’s biggest challenges is introducing himself to voters already bombarded by about 1 1/2 dozen candidates still in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It was 10:45 p.m., nearly four hours after the event’s start time, by the time Patrick took the stage at the Nevada Democratic Party’s “First in the West” event Sunday. Speaking order for the 14 presidential candidates participating was determined by polling, and Patrick was the last to speak.”
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Hundreds of supporters for other candidates who filled blocks of seats purchased by the campaigns and had turned the event into a spirit rally with organized cheers, “thunder stick” noisemakers, and light-up signs had long cleared the room by the time Patrick spoke.
“It’s a little strange to be in a hall where every candidate but mine has a cheering section already organized,” Patrick joked to the roughly 50 people left in the otherwise empty Bellagio hotel ballroom, promising that he would make his comments brief. “Events like this are fabulous, as good as they are, but I still believe they should end the day they began.”
Patrick argued that he could appeal to a wide range of voters. “If we want to make change that lasts, we have to talk to everybody,” he said. “I am not running to be president of the Democrats; I’m running to be president of the United States.”
Attendees who filtered out before Patrick spoke told the Washington Examiner they had little to no knowledge of Patrick as a candidate. But for those who powered through the entire event, Patrick left a positive impression.
“He stood out, actually. I’d say he stood out of all of them,” said retired Henderson, Nevada, resident Sara Frankel, 64, who is undecided on whom to support in the Nevada caucuses. She also liked South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg but was skeptical that he could win in all areas of the country.
“I didn’t have an expectation, and I was really glad I sat there because he would have been missed, and I wouldn’t have even known he would have been missed,“ said Jan Kalajian of Henderson, 69, who runs a cleaning company. “You never know who’s going to end up on top.”
Some undecided voters who had not heard from Patrick did not discount his candidacy. “I need to know more about him. But I’m going to be actively watching and listening to what he has to say. So it’s a possibility,” retired Las Vegas resident Kate Baca said at a Joe Biden event on Saturday.
But 72% of likely Nevada caucus-goers in a CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday said they are satisfied with their choices in the field, and some voters assessed that Patrick’s campaign might be unable to reach many voters.
“It seems to me that we have lots of good people who’ve been running for a while and trying to explain their views to the American people. And to be a latecomer, they’re going to have to run awfully fast to catch up,” said retired philosophy professor John Knight, who attended an event for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday.
It’s possible that Patrick could get a leg up on other candidates if large donors back an advertising campaign. He declined to discourage outside super PACs from supporting his candidacy, unlike most of the other candidates in the field.
“We need to do some catch-up, so I think we’ve got to follow and find all sorts of above-board strategies,” Patrick said on Meet the Press Sunday.
