PHOENIX (Robbie Sherwood, Arizona Republic) July 23, 2006 — Arizona's bid to jump ahead of New Hampshire and grab an early Democratic presidential caucus in 2008 came up snake eyes Saturday.

It was close, but national Democratic Party officials chose Nevada to become an instant battleground state and the focus of Democrat presidential hopefuls and their campaign cash. Nevada will likely follow Iowa's Jan. 14 opening caucus with the nation's second presidential caucus Jan. 19.

Nevada has a strong labor-union presence that helped make its case, and it is home to the Senate's highest-ranking Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

The Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee also picked South Carolina to move ahead its primary to follow on the heels of New Hampshire in late January. That committee's picks must still go to the full DNC for approval.

The DNC was looking to move up one state from the West and one from the South to inject issues more relevant to Latinos, Blacks, unions and other Democratic-friendly constituencies into the presidential discussion. Both Iowa and New Hampshire are at least 95 percent White.

Arizona, which has a more diverse population and economy than Iowa or New Hampshire, was a strong contender, said Fred DuVal, who lobbied the committee on behalf of the Democratic Party.

"We're disappointed because winning the early caucus would have given us a great opportunity to showcase Arizona and our issues," said DuVal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. "While most commission members indicated that we had the best proposal on the merits, in the end we lost a close vote to Nevada based on their much higher labor density."

Gov. Janet Napolitano also made a strong push to move up, touting Arizona's large Latino and Native American populations and a growing biotech economy. Now she must decide when Arizona's Democratic presidential primary will occur. Arizona's presidential primary traditionally occurs in the third week of February. But in 2004, Napolitano moved the contest up and ahead of much of the field to Feb. 3 to grab some of the national political spotlight. Republicans did not put on a primary that year because President Bush was already the nominee.

Besides Arizona and Nevada, eight states plus the District of Columbia had applied for the openings: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia.