Las Vegas at center of tight contests for US Senate, governor
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., center, meets with people during a political event at a Mexican restaurant last weekend
In a meeting hall just north of Las Vegas Boulevard, where casino-resorts tower like gleaming beacons of amusement, Ted Pappageorge laid out a darker, urgent call for action before next month’s election.
Pappageorge, leader of the heavily Latino casino workers’ union, told the hundreds of union members this past weekend that Nevada’s endangered Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto have been “warriors” for workers whose jobs were hit hard by the pandemic while the Republicans who may defeat them in November are “extreme.”
“We’re going to fight back. Are you ready to fight?” Pappageorge said to cheers and claps as the bartenders, cooks, servers, and room cleaners prepared to knock doors and get out the vote on behalf of Nevada Democratic candidates, according to a video of the event.
Across town at the same time, at a strip mall in a retirement community where golf carts share the street with cars, Joe Lombardo, the Republican candidate for governor, told a crowd of about 100 people: “This election, you have to ask one question: Is your life any better today than it was four years ago?”
“No!” the audience yelled in response. “That’s the common answer,” Lombardo said.
The dual rallies launched an intense two-week period of early voting in a state that may shape the nation’s political future. Much of the focus is on Las Vegas, the gambling mecca that drives the state’s economy and is home to three quarters of the state’s population. If Democrats are to pull off victories, they have to drive up turnout here to compensate for the GOP’s strength in rural communities that dominate the rest of the state.
Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, has about 1.3 million registered voters.
So far, the numbers present a mixed picture. Early in-person turnout in Las Vegas was light over the weekend, with only about 19,000 voters casting ballots in-person the first two days. But mail balloting, a process favored by Democrats, was stronger, with about 41,500 votes cast. About 20,000 of those votes were from registered Democrats, compared with about 10,600 from Republicans. The remaining were cast by nonaffiliated or third-party voters.
The governor’s mansion and the seat held by Cortez Masto, the first Latina in the U.S. Senate, are considered two of the Republican Party’s best chances to flip statewide offices around the country. Her opponent is Republican Adam Laxalt, whose name is well-known as a former attorney general and grandson of former Sen. Paul Laxalt of Nevada.
The winners could be determined by the unique social and economic circumstances in Las Vegas.
Rising costs that are being felt globally are packing a double punch here. The city’s heavily working-class population is pinched by higher prices for groceries, and gasoline remains above $5 a gallon. As well, higher costs around the U.S. and the world mean tourists may spend less when they visit, if they even do.
Republican Jeffrey Burns, a property manager and chef in Las Vegas, said he voted “Republican all the way” because everything that the Democrats in control are doing “is just so completely backwards.”
He said he wants Laxalt to be a conservative Republican in the Senate and stop approving “the spending of tons and tons of money like Masto does.” MICHELLE L. PRICE, LAS VEGAS, MDT/AP
