The Nevada Democratic Caucus

I was very surprised by the geographic divide in the Nevada Democratic caucus results (which Clinton won), with Sanders taking the northwest and Clinton taking the southeast.

I hypothesized that the divide could be partly explained by the percentage of federal government employees in the population, so ran some numbers, but found it wasn't a good predictor. Sanders crushed Clinton in north-central Lander and Eureka Counties. How odd! Eureka has second-lowest federal percentage in the state (0.75%), but Lander is about average (2.11%). Mineral County has the highest proportion of federal employees (7.04%) and went for Clinton, but the candidates tied in neighboring Churchill County (also high at 3.36%). The margins were close in Pershing County (lowest percentage of 0.65%) and White Pine (second-highest at 3.61%).

There is a mystery here, but I can't explain it. Some quirk of culture, or campaign effectiveness.