Clinton downplays aide’s comments on Nevada’s diversity

Hillary Clinton is dismissing a top campaign aide’s comparison of the overwhelmingly white electorates of Iowa and New Hampshire to that of Nevada as polls continue to tighten ahead of the weekend caucuses.

“That’s not me,” she told Nevada PBS affiliate KNPB late Tuesday of her staff member’s comments downplaying Nevada’s racial diversity.

“I have a great campaign,” she added. “They work hard, but I love Nevada and Nevada was put into this early process because of diversity.”

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told MSNBC the morning after the former secretary of State’s resounding New Hampshire primary loss last week that Nevada will likely tighten in part because the state is “80 percent white,” downplaying the dynamics that Clinton allies had once pointed to as a safety net in case of a Sanders surge. 

“There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada. But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white voters,” he said, according to Buzzfeed News.

“You have a caucus-style format, and [Bernie Sanders will] have the momentum coming out of New Hampshire presumably, so there’s a lot of reasons he should do well.”

The Clinton campaign once held a huge lead in Nevada. Along with South Carolina, the two states embodied what had been seen as a firewall for the Clinton camp thanks to her popularity among minority voters. But the polls have dramatically narrowed since Sanders’s New Hampshire victory, with a Wednesday morning CNN poll showing the race all but tied.

The Silver State is 52 percent white, according to 2014 Census data. The three prevailing minority groups are Hispanics, with 28 percent, African-Americans, with 9 percent, and Asian-Americans, with 8 percent.

The Democratic caucus electorate is less diverse, but minority voters still make up at least 30 percent of that group.

Exit polls in 2008 cited by the Nevada Democratic Party show that white voters made up 65 percent of the vote during that year’s competitive caucus. African-Americans and Hispanics represented a total of 30 percent of that vote, 15 percent for each bloc.