Former President Trump maintains his lead in a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, according to a new poll.

A survey published Tuesday by the AARP finds Trump with a 3-percentage point lead over President Biden in Nevada. Trump is favored by 48% of likely Silver State voters compared to 45% who said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today. 

That narrow lead extends to a more comfortable 7 points if independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is included. Kennedy has not yet qualified for the Nevada ballot and state Democrats have filed a lawsuit that challenges his eligibility.

Trump’s lead is more pronounced among voters over 50, who said they prefer the presumptive Republican nominee to Biden, a Democrat, by double digits (53%-41%). The silver lining for Biden is that he maintains a lead among Hispanic voters in that age demographic, 51% to Trump’s 41%, according to the AARP poll.

NEVADA DEMOCRATS SUE TO KEEP RFK JR., GREEN PARTY OFF NOVEMBER BALLOT

“We have a huge Hispanic population, so that vote will matter,” said Maria Moore, AARP Nevada state director. Hispanics make up 22% of the eligible voter population in Nevada, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center analysis cited in the AARP’s news release. 

Nevada is one of several closely watched states that could very well determine who holds the White House next year. The battleground state has not gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, when President George W. Bush ran for re-election. But Biden only won the state narrowly in 2020, with 50.06% of the vote to Trump’s 47.67% vote share. 

A Fox News poll released earlier this month found Biden trailed Trump by a 5-point margin. 

Republicans are optimistic they can flip the state after current GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo unseated Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak in the 2022 election.

Lombardo recently argued that Nevada voters are dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the economy in a New York Times guest essay.

NEVADA GOVERNOR TELLS BIDEN HE’S IN DANGER OF LOSING CRITICAL STATE OVER HIGH PRICES: ‘JUST DOESN’T GET IT’

Former President Trump points during a campaign rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas on June 9, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

“If recent polling on Democratic candidates in Nevada is any indication, and I think it is, Mr. Biden has a big problem to overcome, because after three and a half years, Nevadans are losing confidence in him to do something meaningful about inflation and housing and are left with the feeling that he just doesn’t get it,” he wrote. 

The AARP survey found only 40% of voters age 50-plus mostly approve of Biden’s job performance, while 59% disapprove. Reflecting on Trump’s first term in office, 56% of voters over 50 approve of what he did as president, while 43% disapprove. 

The survey also asked about Nevada’s U.S. Senate race, in which Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., seeks re-election against Republican challenger Sam Brown, a wounded combat veteran. The poll found Rosen leading Brown among voters of all ages 47% to 42%, bolstered by Hispanic support for Rosen.

“It’s the margin among Hispanic and Latino voters that’s putting Rosen in the lead,” pollster Bob Ward said. 

TRUMP RILES UP FIERY SWING STATE CROWD IN FIRST RALLY SINCE NEW YORK CONVICTION

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, left, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times arguing the economy was driving Nevadans to support Trump over President Biden. (Getty Images)

The top-ranking issues for Nevada voters were the economy, rising food prices, immigration and border security, according to the AARP survey. 

Impact Research pollster Jeff Liszt suggested split-ticket voters will be the deciding factor in the upcoming election.

“When you look at the older voters, 43% are straight-ticket Republican and 35% are straight-ticket Democrat, but 23% are splitting their tickets,” Liszt told AARP. “[That’s] an indicator that there are more voters up for grabs right now than there may have been in recent elections.”

Republican pollster Fabrizio Ward partnered with Democratic firm Impact Research to conduct the survey, which included 1,368 likely voters interviewed between June 12 and 18. The poll’s margin of error is 4%.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down part of a federal anti-corruption law that makes it a crime for state and local officials to take gifts valued at more than $5,000 from a donor who had previously been awarded lucrative contracts or other government benefits thanks to the efforts of the official.

By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the conviction of a former Indiana mayor who asked for and took a $13,000 payment from the owners of a local truck dealership after he helped them win $1.1 million in city contracts for the purchase of garbage trucks.

In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor. They said the officials may be charged and prosecuted for bribery, but not for simply taking money for past favors if there was no proof of an illicit deal.

“The question in this case is whether [the federal law] also makes it a crime for state and local officials to accept gratuities — for example, gift cards, lunches, plaques, books, framed photos or the like — that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act. The answer is no,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing for the majority.

Despite his reference to token gifts such as lunches and framed photos, the federal law was triggered only by payments of more than $5,000.

But the court’s conservative majority said the law in question was a “bribery statute, not a gratuities law.” Kavanaugh said federal law “leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.”

Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

“Officials who use their public positions for private gain threaten the integrity of our most important institutions,” Jackson wrote in dissent. The law as written “poses no genuine threat to common gift giving” but it “clearly covers the kind of corrupt (albeit perhaps non-quid pro quo) payment [the mayor] solicited after steering the city contracts to the dealership.”

The ruling could have a broad impact. About 20 million local and state officials are covered by the federal anti-corruption law, including officials at hospitals and universities that receive federal funds.

Justice Department lawyers told the court that for nearly 40 years, the anti-bribery law has been understood to prohibit payments to officials that “rewarded” them for having steered contracts to the donors.

The Supreme Court justices have faced heavy criticism recently for accepting undisclosed gifts from wealthy patrons. Justice Clarence Thomas regularly took lavish vacations and private jet flights that were paid for by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took a fishing trip to Alaska in 2008 aboard a private plane owned by Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire.

The high court has long held that criminal laws restricting “illegal gratuities” to federal officials require proof that the gifts were given for a specific “official act,” not just because of the official’s position.

The Indiana mayor was charged and convicted of taking the $13,000 payment because of his role in helping his patrons win city contracts.

Congress in 1986 extended the federal bribery law to cover officials of state or local agencies that receive federal funds. The measure made it a crime to “corruptly solicit or demand … or accept … anything of value of $5,000 or more … intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business or transaction.”

Prosecutors said James Snyder was heavily in debt and behind in paying his taxes when he became mayor of Portage, Ind., in 2012. The city needed new garbage trucks, and the mayor took over the required public bidding. He spoke regularly with two brothers who owned a local truck dealership that also had financial problems, and he designed the bidding process so that only their two new trucks would meet all of its standards. He also arranged to have the city buy an older truck that was on their lot.

Two weeks after the contracts were final, the mayor went to see the two brothers and told them of his financial troubles. They agreed to write him a check for $13,000 for undefined consulting services.

An FBI investigation led to Snyder’s indictment, his conviction and a 21-month prison sentence.

The former mayor argued that an after-the-fact gift should not be a crime, but he lost before a federal judge and the U.S. appeals court in Chicago.

The high court agreed to hear his appeal in Snyder vs. U.S. because appeals courts in Boston and New Orleans had limited the law to bribery only and not gratuities that were paid later.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly limited the scope of public corruption laws and often in unanimous rulings. The common theme is that the justices concluded the prosecutions went beyond the law.

Last year, the court was unanimous in overturning the corruption convictions of two New York men who were former aides or donors to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. The court noted that one of the defendants convicted of taking illicit payments did not work for the state during that time.

Four years ago, the justices were unanimous in overturning the convictions of two aides to then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, who were charged with conspiring to shut down lanes to the George Washington Bridge into New York City. The court said they were wrongly convicted of fraud because they had not sought money or property, which is a key element of a fraud charge.

In 2016, the court overturned the corruption conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican. While the governor took $175,000 in gifts from a business promoter, he took no official actions to benefit the donor, the court said.