But others say it’s premature to assume Nevada and New Hampshire (if it doesn’t invalidate itself by trying to go first) will also bend left. Sanders won Nevada in 2020, and more voters there (31%) identified as “very liberal” than in the other five early states. But that was for a caucus. In 2028, Nevada will hold a primary, and the expectation that larger electorate will favor the far left “is wishful thinking by some folks,” says Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union, the state’s most powerful political force.

For instance, the culinary union, which represents service workers in the casinos, has long opposed the Medicare for All single-payer healthcare proposal that any left-leaning candidate is likely to stress in 2028.

Instead, Pappageorge says, moving Nevada forward to the second contest will pressure candidates to provide practical answers to the daily needs of economically precarious working-class voters who were never as central in Iowa or New Hampshire. “To be No. 2 in the nation,” he says, will allow Nevada to elevate the concerns and experiences of “all workers in this country.”