While poor weather grounded the flight of the event's keynote speaker, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, state Democratic officials turned out in the rain Saturday morning to open Hillary Clinton's Arkansas campaign headquarters at a Little Rock shopping center.

The windows of a former recording studio in the back of the Tanglewood Shopping Center on Cantrell Road were plastered with campaign signs, and under the building's awning organizers sold "Heck Yeah Hillary" T-shirts as the crowd crunched to fit under a canopy.

The office had previously been used in Little Rock Democrat Clarke Tucker's successful campaign for the state House of Representatives in 2014.

Democrats, including former U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, framed the headquarters as a starting point through which they hoped to turn around the slide in the party's support across the state.

Pryor, the son of former Arkansas governor and U.S. Sen. David Pryor, lost his bid for re-election in 2014, when Republicans completed their takeover of the Arkansas Legislature and all statewide elected offices. Having the state's former first lady on the ballot, he said, could be a boon to down-ticket races.

"That's not the only race on the ballot. We have Conner Eldridge is running for the U.S. Senate, and we can push him over the finish line," Mark Pryor said. "We've got great House members and senators in the state Legislature, and we need to help push them over the finish line."

Despite the deep losses suffered by the party in recent elections, Democrats pointed to recent polls that showed Clinton ahead or close in other Southern states such as Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Rhetoric by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was alienating voters in red states, they said.

"Small groups of Americans have been the ones driving the charge," against Trump, Booker said in a speech broadcast by phone. He said Trump's statements about Muslims and immigrants are "waking up echoes from the past that we hope we have left behind."

In the end, Clinton's presidential hopes are unlikely to hinge upon Arkansas' six electoral votes, which have not gone to a Democrat since Bill Clinton won them in his 1996 re-election, said Dustin McDaniel, a state committeeman to the Democratic National Committee and former Arkansas attorney general.

McDaniel predicted the presidential election will be the closest in the state since 2000, when Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, lost with more than 45 percent of the vote.

"We didn't go from a Democratic state to a Republican state overnight, and we're not going to go back overnight, but I think it will be a good year," McDaniel said before the event.

Three full-time staff members will man the 1,500-square-foot office throughout the campaign, in addition to volunteers. Rent for the space is $605 a month, said H.L. Moody, the state party spokesman.

Democrats are likely to also open a regional office in Northwest Arkansas, state party Chairman Vincent Insalaco said. In addition, a network of about a dozen county offices will provide local support.

"You really don't need a campaign headquarters anymore except for a grassroots campaign," Insalaco said. The prevalence of social media and data gathering has not made door-knocking and cold calling obsolete, he said, "it's the only way to drown out the noise."

Moody said about 800 people had RSVP'd to the event, and 404 signed in Saturday morning.

Metro on 08/14/2016