LAS VEGAS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is working to make Nevada look like less of a political gamble in November's election.
The Democratic presidential nominee was visiting the state on Saturday with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. It's the final stop of a battleground blitz in which Democrats are showing new energy after President Joe Biden exited the race and Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket.
Magnolia Magat, a 59-year-old restaurant owner in Las Vegas who lives in the neighboring city of Henderson, said she’s now “more hopeful” about the election.
“I am very happy that not only is our candidate a woman, she is Black and she’s also Asian,” said Magat, who is Filipino American. “And it’s not because Harris is a woman that I want to endorse her. It’s because she’s highly capable of running the country.”
As part of the trip, Harris is hoping to build greater support among Latino voters. In 2020, Biden narrowly beat Republican Donald Trump by 2.4 percentage points in Nevada. Trump, the former president, is trying this time to create more support in a state that relies on the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industry by pledging to make workers' tips tax-free.
But the union representing 60,000 workers in that industry, the Culinary Workers Union, announced Friday night its endorsement of Harris. About 54% of the union's members are Latino, 55% women and 60% immigrants.
“The path to victory runs through Nevada,” the union said in a statement, “and the Culinary Union will deliver Nevada for President Kamala Harris and Vice President Tim Walz.”
Also, Adelante PAC, the political arm of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights group, League of United Latin American Citizens, endorsed Harris. That was a first for the 95-year-old organization that has in the past steered away from formally throwing its support behind political candidates.
CEO Juan Proaño attended Saturday’s rally with Harris and Walz and said in an interview that doing so was necessary because “there was just obviously a very overriding concern about the future impact on the Latino community” if Trump returns to the White House.
AP VoteCast found in 2020 that 14% of Nevada voters were Hispanic, with Biden winning 54% of their votes. His margin with Hispanic voters was slightly better nationwide, a sign that Democrats cannot take this bloc of voters for granted.
Imer Cespedes-Alvarado, a first generation American citizen who spent his childhood in Costa Rica before making the difficult decision at 16 to return alone to the U.S. for better opportunities, was excited to have Walz and Harris speaking on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where he is majoring in political science.
“There’s an incredible energy here among the college students and community members who are coming together to support and listen to our next president, Kamala Harris, and soon-to-be vice president, Tim Walz,” said Cespedes-Alvarado, 21.
Harris is hoping to drive a wedge with Republicans by focusing on issues such as access to abortion and repairs to the U.S. immigration system. Her message is that Trump killed a bipartisan deal this year to improve security on the southern border and address immigration issues, with Democrats saying he did so in hopes of improving his own political odds.
Because Harris' portfolio in the Biden administration included the root causes of migration and due to some of her comments before the 2020 election, Republicans have sought to portray her as weak on the southern border and enabling illegal immigration.
At a news conference in Florida this past week, Trump said of Harris, “As a border czar, she's been the worst border czar in history, in the world history.”
The Republican has proposed mass deportations if he returns to the White House, but AP VoteCast found in 2020 that nearly 7 in 10 Nevada voters said that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be offered the chance to apply for legal status.
Krista Hall, 60, and her husband Thaddeus Hager, 58, attended the Las Vegas rally with Harris and Walz and said that they haven’t been more excited about an election since President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.
“This is as electric, if not more than,” Hall said, noting that they attended several Obama rallies at the time. Hager said he’s confident that Harris and Walz will “win in a landslide.”
The Democatic ticket over the past week has also visited the crucial midwestern “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Along with Nevada and Arizona, those five states represent 61 electoral votes that could be essential for reaching the 270 threshold required to win November's election. Harris had also planned to visit North Carolina and Georgia this past week — between them another 32 electoral votes — but those stops were postponed due to Tropical Storm Debby.
In Nevada's rural Douglas County near the California border, Gail Scott, 71, serves on the central committee of the local Democratic Party and said she didn't initially agree with calls for Biden to leave the race. Trump won the county in 2016 and 2020, but trimming his margins there could lower his ability to compete in Nevada.
Scott said it's impossible to miss the energy that Harris has created among younger voters who could help statewide.
“Young people are embracing Kamala Harris and the enthusiasm and the joy that she’s brought to the campaign,” she said.
Brian Shaw, a Republican from northern Nevada, said Harris’ arrival on the top of the ticket could make it harder for Trump to win because Biden was a “pitiful candidate” and there’s little time to expose the vice president’s “incompetence.” He said he attended Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s rally in Reno on July 30 and found him to be “likable, capable, polished as a politician, but not veneered.” He didn't have much of an opinion of Walz.
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Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.
