“Elizabeth Warren just has a gigantic campaign,” said Laura Martin, executive director of the social justice organization Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. “There are counties all over rural areas where some campaigns are just doing tours, but she has staff there. And that was a strategy President Obama had in 2008 when he won Nevada.”

Another Democratic operative put it more bluntly: “Warren has built a monster.”

Among 17 Democratic strategists, activists and experts interviewed by POLITICO for this story, Warren’s campaign was mentioned most often as the most impressive of the field, followed by Harris’.

The standing of the two women speaks to their early organizing in the state, the on-the-ground experience of their staffs and one of Nevada’s unique political distinctions: the power of women. It’s the only state in the nation whose U.S. senators are both women and where women constitute the majority of the state Legislature and congressional delegation — a triumph of progressivism and political organization powered by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s vaunted political machine.