Colorado's Caucuses Focus On Democratic Presidential Race
DENVER (AP) - Colorado plays a relatively minor role in the presidential nominating process, but Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were urging fellow party members to attend the thousands of neighborhood straw polls that are Tuesday night's caucuses.
The nonbinding caucuses will give momentum to the Democratic victor in this battleground state come November.
Clinton organized early with 10 state field offices and the endorsement of most state Democratic Party leaders. Sanders' volunteers intensified their campaign in recent weeks, and the Vermont senator held a Sunday rally in the university town of Fort Collins, where he told a young crowd he was unbowed by Clinton's national lead.
Colorado Republicans abandoned a presidential straw poll this year because the national GOP required a binding delegate vote. State party leaders would have no voice at the national convention if the winner here had dropped out before then.
Instead, GOP caucus-goers will be declaring their preferences for state and local races, including several candidates hoping to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in November.
Colorado's caucuses are the first step toward sending party members to the national conventions this summer. After Tuesday, each party holds successive assemblies in each county, then each congressional district, and then party conventions in April. Both parties hold primaries in June.
Volunteers for the Democratic candidates were working hard Tuesday to rally support.
Sanders volunteer Jacob Lawrence-Simon, a 30-year-old software developer for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, said he has been actively campaigning for Sanders since September.
He started his day Tuesday at 4:30 a.m., hanging notices on doors to remind voters to caucus.
Lawrence-Simon said he supports Sanders because of his views on gay rights, a higher minimum wage and his "desire to not go to war."
"I want politicians to try to solve an issue without bombs first ... and I feel like Bernie Sanders better represents that mentality than Hillary Clinton, who seems to be like a bomb-and-fix kind of candidate," Lawrence-Simon said.
Lawrence-Simon was also helping coordinate the efforts of about 20 volunteers and about a half-dozen paid staff at Sanders' Denver headquarters, in an unassuming strip mall that includes a barber shop and an Ethiopian restaurant.
Volunteers were busy calling voters to remind them to caucus, and the campaign set up a hotline to answer questions about the process.
Democrats predicted caucus turnout would be lower than in 2008, the last contested Democratic presidential contest. About 120,000 people caucused for Clinton and Barack Obama.
Republicans, without a presidential contest, also expected smaller crowds than the 70,000 who caucused in 2008.
Twelve states cast votes for party nominees Tuesday, the biggest single-day delegate haul of the nomination contests. Republicans voted in 11 states, with 595 delegates at stake. Democrats voted in 11 states and American Samoa, with 865 delegates up for grabs.
- By KRISTEN WYATT, AP Writer
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