Flores on a 24-hour non-stop hunt for votes

Lucy Flores has run 26.2-mile marathons five times.

She also once campaigned so hard and long that she was hospitalized overnight for dehydration.

“I learned my lesson: I’ve got water,” Flores said Thursday, five and one-half hours into a 24-hour campaign blitz in Las Vegas, during which she has 20 stops with no scheduled breaks to sleep.

Flores, a Democratic assemblywoman, is running for lieutenant governor against state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, another energetic campaigner who has spent more than a year crisscrossing the state to meet Nevadans. Hutchison is nearing 600 campaign events statewide, according to his campaign.

With the end-game near, people are already casting ballots in early voting before the Nov. 4 election, and candidates are chasing every last vote in a low-turnout election.

Flores said she decided to hit the trail for 24 hours straight to meet voters who normally don’t go to campaign events. She was meeting union members, small business owners and patrons, supermarket shoppers, university students, medical workers, cake bakers and even stopping at a wedding chapel to see who’s getting married at 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

For early-morning munchies Flores will be at Tacos El Gordo at 2:30 a.m.

“It’s important to me to meet the people who make this city run,” Flores said.

At lunch time Thursday, Flores donned a hair net and helped serve lunch at the Salvation Army in downtown Las Vegas, where homeless people, the unemployed and the under-employed were sharing a free meal. Franks and beans were on the menu, along with corn dogs, pork tenderloin and vegetables.

Standing at the end of a serving line, Flores put bread on each plate and chatted up the staff.

“There are a lot of people here who are not homeless,” said Flores. “Many of these people are struggling to get by.”

Flores has campaigned partly on her biography and her own difficulties growing up with little supervision in North Las Vegas after her mother left when she was nine years old. She got into trouble, joined a gang and dropped out of high school before she was caught stealing cars. With support from a parole officer, however, and she turned her life around, eventually going to college and law school and becoming a legislator.

At the Salvation Army, Flores recalled being on food stamps for a while and surviving on free government commodities.

“I used to love that cheese,” she said with a laugh.

Flores began her day at 8 a.m. Thursday visiting Culinary Workers. She planned to end her 24-hour blitz at her campaign headquarters by celebrating her 35th birthday on Friday.

She dressed casually for the campaign trail in jeans and a brown suit jacket. She said she was trying to preserve her strength so as not to suffer a repeat of the day in 2012 when she went to the hospital after too much campaigning.

“I’m banking my energy,” Flores said, but added that she’s used to marathon work and play sessions. “This is what I do and what I’ve done my whole life. I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve gotten.”

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Find her on Twitter: @lmyerslvrj.