Sanders’s aides say there is strong evidence in their internal polling that young and working-class Latinos are coming his way. Even the Clinton campaign is now playing down expectations. In a conference call with reporters last month, campaign manager Robby Mook said Clinton held a 25-point lead in the state. But in the wake of the New Hampshire defeat, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon pointedly called Nevada “a state that is 80 percent white voters,” universally seen as a way to undercut the story that Sanders is making gains outside of progressive white voters. (In 2008, fewer than 70 percent of ­caucus-goers were white.)

And both campaigns competed intensely in the state over the weekend — with more appearances to come before the caucuses in five days. On Saturday the San­ders campaign asked in an email for “volunteers across the country to help us call Spanish-speaking voters in Nevada and find out who is for Bernie and who is still undecided.” Clinton’s campaign deployed squads of Spanish-speaking union members.

Twelve Sanders campaign offices have mushroomed across the state. He is outspending Clinton in TV ads by roughly 2 to 1, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Those ads, which began in November, now feature the Latina politician Lucy Flores, a former state legislator, explaining why she thinks only Sanders can fix the country. More than a hundred paid staffers have hit the ground, aided by Latino pro-Sanders groups from as far away as Los Angeles. On Sunday, San­ders even wound up in the same black Las Vegas church as Clinton, sitting at the opposite end of the first pew.