Slot Machines and Gin Endorsements: Political Moments in Las Vegas -- VIDEO

By Theresa Poulson

Updated: February 2, 2012 | 4:48 p.m.
February 2, 2012 | 4:36 p.m.

The next leg of the Republican presidential nominating contest brings the national spotlight to Nevada, the home of Sin City.

National Journal correspondent Major Garrett and The Atlantic staff writer Molly Ball know Las Vegas well: They both reported on and lived in the city before making their way to the nation's capital.

Click through below to watch them talk about their most memorable times on the strip and highlights of moments in Las Vegas politics.

The Atlantic senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz contributed

Fireworks burst over the Las Vegas Strip at midnight on New Year's Day 2012. Republicans will caucus in Nevada on Saturday. (Photo/Las Vegas News Bureau, Darrin Bush)

Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney on Thursday in Las Vegas. (GERALD HERBERT/AP)

Carolyn Goodman (right) embraces her husband, Oscar Goodman, after she was declared the winner of the race for Las Vegas mayor on June 7, 2011, in Las Vegas. Goodman will succeed her husband, the former Las Vegas mayor. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)

Then-Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman walks though the lobby of the Anaheim, Calif., hotel holding the Major League Baseball winter meetings in 2004, accompanied by two showgirls and an Elvis impersonator in hopes of luring a team to his city. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Las Vegas was a microcosm of national politics in 2010 when tea party favorite Sharron Angle nearly claimed Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid's seat. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Amid his bid for reelection, first lady Michelle Obama and Reid participate in a mountain stretch during the "Let's Move Outside" program at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area outside Las Vegas in June 2010. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)

Former President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea (left) greet employees as they tour Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas on Jan. 17, 2008. In 2008, the Democratic caucuses brought the oddity of cocktail waitresses, casino dealers, and other service employees voting in the Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace, the Rio and other hotel-casinos. Bill Clinton showed up in hotel kitchens to chat up the staff on behalf of his wife. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Plans to store the nation's high-level radioactive waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain are highly contentious and ultimately quashed in 2009. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

Then-president George H.W. Bush holds 7-day-old Braxton Ross at the University Medical Center on Feb. 6, 1992 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma)

President John F. Kennedy is shown addressing a crowd in the Convention Center in Las Vegas on Sept. 28, 1963 during a trip through the west to encourage conservation of natural resources. (AP Photo)

A gigantic pillar of smoke with the familiar mushroom top climbs above Yucca flat during a nuclear detonation in Las Vegas on April 22, 1952. (AP Photo)

President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates what is now known as the Hoover Dam (then known as the Boulder Dam ) on Sept. 30, 1935. It was the largest public works project in the history of the United States at the time. (United States Bureau of Reclamation)

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