Democrats have kept Nevada in their column in every presidential election since 2004. In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats launched a “blue wave,” flipping a seat in the United States Senate and reinforcing their dominance. on the delegation of Congress and the Legislature.
But this year, political strategists and organizers warn that Nevada remains an indecisive state. And it could swing.
“I don’t know where this state is going,” said Annette Magnus-Marquart, executive director of the Nevada progressive group Battle Born Progress. “Nevada is still a purple state. Nevada is still a battlefield. No matter what your match is, you have to fight when you run in this state. “
President Donald Trump, who narrowly lost here in 2016, scheduled a campaign rally Sunday night in Carson City, his second in the state in as many months as the first big wave of voting begins.
Nevada’s Democratic-controlled state government automatically sends ballots to all active registered voters due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the in-person voting that began Saturday is typically when the majority of people vote. It is expected to remain a popular option this year, with long lines forming at various sites on Saturday.
Democrat Leigh Natale, a 65-year-old retired paralegal, waited outside a polling place tent set up in a parking lot south of the Las Vegas Strip. She called Trump “crazy” and said his handling of the pandemic “just compounded what was already a really horrible administration.” A Joe Biden supporter, Natale said, “It’s time we have some forward-looking policies and get back to normal in this country.”
Towards the end of the line, Tom Johnson, 55, a corporate coach who says he is an unaffiliated voter, was going to vote for president. “He’s doing better than anyone” in fighting the virus, Johnson said.
The pandemic has hit the economy dependent on tourism. The unemployment rate is the highest in the country.
For the acclaimed Democratic political machine, the campaign in person and the knocks on voters’ doors have become a virtual endeavor for much of this year. Republicans only went virtual for a few months and have been hard at work, staffing twice as large as their 2016 effort. They are making strides with a diverse electorate and trying to deflect economic frustrations from the president onto the Democratic governor of the state, Steve Sisolak.
Although Trump lost Nevada in 2016, he performed better than Mitt Romney in 2012 or John McCain in 2008. The state also has a higher percentage of whites with no college education, who have formed the basis of its electoral support, than many other states. , including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Recent polls suggest that Biden is leading the way in Nevada, although some show narrower margins than others. But the state has a strong independent streak and is notoriously difficult to survey. The hospitality industry, including the Las Vegas gambling center and resorts, has a significant portion of night and shift workers and a highly transient population that moves in, out, and around the state.
Those same factors can make knocking on the door particularly important in reaching and registering voters.
Since the spring, Republicans have consistently added more voters to their lists than Democrats each month, reducing their voter registration deficit in September to 5 percentage points, 1 point less than in 2016.
Biden’s campaign has argued that it can be organized digitally effectively, but earlier this month it resumed door-to-door polling. The former vice president and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, made their own visits to Las Vegas this month.
Rory McShane, a Nevada-based Republican political strategist, said the state has a strong populist presence and that Republicans can benefit from voters who may be frustrated with restrictions related to the Sisolak virus and a hampered state unemployment system. It still has tens of thousands of residents that I have been waiting for help since spring.
Democrats are not buying into that theory. They say the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, the economic fallout, and the president’s disregard for his own government’s health and safety guidelines will hurt him.
William Jordan, 57, said while waiting to vote in Las Vegas on Saturday that the president has handled the crisis “very horribly,” adding to Jordan’s decision to vote for Biden.
Jordan, a Democrat who says he sides with Republicans on economic issues, said he had recovered from COVID-19. His 82-year-old mother survived the virus, but he has had two friends who have died from it.
Jordan also cited the president’s rhetoric on race as one of the main reasons he votes Democrats. “The country has been divided so drastically and that makes me fear for myself as a black man and for my children growing up and for the righteous people in general,” he said. “It’s depressing, to be honest with you.”
The Trump campaign has been courting the state’s diverse demographic groups, including black voters, a rapidly growing population of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Latinos, who make up 29% of the population.
In Nevada, Latinos in particular have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, accounting for nearly half of the confirmed coronavirus cases in the state.
No group is more motivated than the Culinary Union of 60,000 casino workers. Roughly half of the majority Latino and overwhelmingly female union is currently out of work and 50 of its members or family members have died from COVID-19.
The union has backed Biden and says it has grown its polling and organizing program faster than ever and bigger than ever, with 350 people currently in the field.
Geoconda Argüello-Kline, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said its members will work “until the last minute to make sure we can get the last person to vote” and feel that “the only way out of this mess is to get to President Trump. “
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