Once upon a time — say, way back in 2004 — overwhelming Republican Party support in rural Nevada offset the Democratic advantage in densely-populated Clark County. Swing county Washoe, Nevada’s second most populous, often determined who won statewide campaigns. John Kerry won Clark County in 2004 by a less-than comfortable 5-point margin while George W. Bush won every other county in the state — Washoe by 4 points and rural counties by up to a 4-to-1 margin.

Fast-forward to 2008. Barack Obama lost the rural counties (but had a better showing than Kerry), improved his margins in Clark County, and flipped Washoe. Postgame analysis is far from over in the state, but one early question is emerging: Do the rurals still matter?

Obama fought hard for the rural counties, visiting Elko three times and drawing out the few liberals hiding in the shadows. John McCain, who finished third in Nevada’s Republican caucuses, wasn’t helped by lukewarm support among conservatives in the state, many of whom were more anti-Obama than pro-McCain. Most expected the rurals to play their usual role in helping determine who would win the state’s five electoral votes, but the Las Vegas Sun reports that “even if Obama had not gotten a single vote in the 14 counties outside Clark, Washoe and Carson City, and even if all of his votes had gone to McCain instead, he still would have carried the state.”

“I said in 2004, this may very well be the last statewide election where rurals can leverage the vote,” Elko Republican Party Chairman Reece Keener told the Sun. “We just don’t have the pull that we once did.”

In a close election, every state and every voter matters. Had Kerry won Nevada, he would have won the White House. Given Obama’s electoral vote drubbing of McCain, the Democrat didn’t need to win Nevada (or Colorado or New Mexico.) Similarly, his 12-point victory in Nevada meant he didn’t need the rurals any more than he needed any other specific subset of voters.

But by 2012 (or even the 2010 midterm elections, when the governorship, one Senate seat, and all the House seats are up for grabs), who’s to say Nevada Latinos will vote as overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates or at all? Maybe the slim voter registration edge enjoyed by Democrats in Washoe will reverse itself or turnout in Clark County will fall from the heights seen this year.

If the blue wave continue across Nevada, the rurals likely won’t matter in statewide campaigns as witnessed this year. But on a local level, the gun-loving ranchers and miners in rural communities will continue to dominate and could resist shifting blue themselves. It could all depend on how the new Democrats in power choose to govern.

“When we start to see some of the new programs coming out of Washington, it’s going to really galvanize things for us,” Keener said in the Sun.

Or maybe the blue waters will wash across the rural counties, too.

“When people see we are not radicals who shut down mines and take away their guns and we go out and fix the economy, things switch,” Lance Whitney, chairman of Elko’s Democratic Party told the Sun. “People’s minds switch.”

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — In the shadow of a statue honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., members of the majority African-American West Las Vegas community staged a march to the polls and rally Saturday morning, the first day of early voting in the state.

“I think that Clark County is truly going to put Obama over the top and Nevada will be blue,” said John Hunt, chairman of the Clark County Democratic Party in an interview after the march.

In 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 21,500 votes in Nevada. At the time, Republicans held a less than 4,500 advantage over Democrats in voter registrations, but this year, Democrats are ahead by 100,000. Kerry beat Bush in Clark County — Nevada’s largest — by more than 26,000 votes, but the rest of the state went for Bush. In some rural communities, Bush beat Kerry by more than a 3-to-1 margin. Had Kerry won Nevada, he would have won the White House.

Both campaigns are pushing their supporters to lock in their votes early, but the push seems especially strong on the Democratic side.

“[Democrats] show up to all the rallies, but now we need to make sure they show up to the polls,” said Hunt, who expects 50 percent or more voters to vote early.

People like Eddie Watson are making sure everyone who is eligible makes it to the polls. “This is my district and my job as a captain for Obama is to get people out to vote and to pick them up,” Watson tells me as he serves as my de facto tour guide of the community.

Watson spent the morning driving people to and from the polls, a job he says he’ll continue doing until early voting closes October 31, then again on election day. A former president of the Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP, Watson has called the city home for more than 30 years and the retiree says he’s probably busier now than when he was working.

Eddie Watson in his voter taxi

“I’ve been up since 5, I’ve been going since then, and I got like another 7 or 8 people to pick up. Then we’ll have lunch and then we’ll get on the phone, we’ll call another group of people, and then we’ll start the cycle all over again,” he says.

Talking to Watson, it’s clear to me that he’s busy even when an election isn’t on. In the car with us is a young boy Watson is driving home who spent the morning at a shooting range at nearby Nellis Air Force Base as part of the Civil Air Patrol cadet program. As we drive past a crowded football field, Watson tells me how the community all pitched in time and money to build it several years ago.

“A young person in Las Vegas should never say they are bored,” he tells me.”There’s simply too much in this town for young people to do and too many people that care enough about young people to keep them out of trouble.”

We drop off one woman who didn’t have time to wait in the unexpected line, but she isn’t discouraged and will be back. “They’re laughing and talking and having a good time [at the polls], and I wish I could stay, but I am pressed for time,” she says. Before she leaves the car she schedules a ride with Watson for Monday.

Back at the polling place, I talk to one woman who hasn’t voted in 30 years.

“I used to vote every year, to tell you the truth. When we was back in Mississippi, we didn’t get to vote, you see,” Ethel May Fletcher, who moved to Nevada in 1945, tells me.

Ethel May Fletcher, casting her first ballot in decades, is interviewed by a local TV station

Like most Obama supporters, Fletcher thinks the country is on the wrong track. But considering the 91-year-old has lived through both world wars, the great depression, and the civil rights era, I give her assessment a little more weight than some of the 18-year-old first time voters I meet.

Before we part ways, I ask her if she plans on waiting another 30 years before voting again or if she plans on voting to reelect Barack Obama in 2012. “If I be living, that’s right. I wouldn’t miss it,” she says.

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UPDATE: The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today that of the 25,110 people who cast ballots on the first day of early voting, 62 percent were registered Democrats, 23 percent Republicans, and the rest were nonpartisans or members of third parties. Granted not all people will vote in line with their registration, it looks like quite a day for Clark County Democrats,