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Election immigration fight could upend Nevada’s economy from the desert to the Strip

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Election immigration fight could upend Nevada’s economy from the desert to the Strip


In the remote Nevada desert, the Baker Ranch couldn’t survive without immigrant guest workers who come every year from Mexico.

About 300 miles to the south In Las Vegas — increasingly a vacation playground for Americans from all political and socioeconomic backgrounds — immigrants are just as vital, keeping the 24-hour economy humming all day, every day.

Immigration has become a source of fear and frustration for voters in this presidential election — with possible outcomes that could take the United States down two dramatically different paths. But immigrants who have been in the country for decades say a nuanced issue has been drowned out by seemingly simpler solutions championed by both parties.

Nowhere are the complicated economic and social realities behind the searing-hot political divide on immigration more clear than in Nevada, a toss-up state that could decide an increasingly close election.

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Here are highlights from the AP’s report:

How immigration has shaped the presidential race

The influx of illegal border crossings long strained city and state resources even in Democratic strongholds across the country, even as encounters between immigrants and law enforcement officials have declined sharply in recent months. And yet, immigration has fueled job growth in ways that strengthen the economy and improve the federal government’s fiscal health.

Former President Donald Trump is championing hardline proposals that would force mass deportations, while Vice President Kamala Harris is calling for pathways to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally. But Harris is also calling for increased funding for border security enforcement and strengthening existing Biden administration actions that tightened rules for immigrants to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrive at the southern border.

“I think that our focus is completely directed into the border and not toward the people who are already here and have been here for many, many years,” said Erika Marquez, immigrant justice organizer for the advocacy group Make the Road Nevada.

Bipartisan support for guest workers — to a point

Both parties have called for expanding guest worker programs in agriculture.

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The Trump administration deemed guest farmworkers essential during the coronavirus pandemic, and the program’s participation rose while he was in office. But he also proposed a rule freezing farmworkers’ salaries for two years, loosening requirements for worker housing and restricting the transportation costs they could be reimbursed for.

The Biden administration wiped out those rules. Since then, more than 310,000 H-2A visas were issued in fiscal year 2023, compared to around 213,000 in fiscal year 2020, the last full one under Trump. But the Biden White House also imposed a series of new rules meant to better protect workers that have occasionally frustrated business owners like the Bakers.

“It is a hot potato and each side’s lobbing one at the other. And, in all honesty, both are to blame,” Janille Baker, who runs the ranch’s financial books, said of immigration. “There is going to come a point where it has to get taken care of. You can’t just keep using fearmongering and scaring people, and then being critical of the people who do or don’t want to do whatever jobs.”

A state economy powered by immigrants

In Nevada, nearly 19% of residents are foreign-born and 9% of the total workforce does not have U.S. legal status. If the state lost all of its workers in the country illegally, Labor Department figures suggest the direct job losses would be roughly as large as those from the 2008 financial crisis, which stalled tourism, triggered a wave of housing market foreclosures and cost the state about 9.3% of its jobs during the subsequent Great Recession.

“In our wonderful, 24-hour economy, we know that these hotels and casinos could not, should not, would not be able to open every day without immigrants,” said Peter Guzman, president and CEO of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Nevada.

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And even rounding up people in the country illegally might not count those with temporary protected status, or the guest workers on Baker ranch, all of whom are authorized to be in the U.S.

Haydee Zetino, who scrubs lavish hotel suites at Harrah’s Casino on the famed Las Vegas strip, is an immigrant from El Salvador with only temporary protected status in the U.S. The 62-year-old saw Trump try to strip away many such protections during his first term and worries it could happen again if he wins — even as she can’t vote herself as a non-citizen.

“These people don’t have any conscience,” she said of mass deportation supporters. “They believe they can lift up the country, move the economy forward, but they don’t think of those at the bottom.”

A small state that could be a big factor on Election Day

The Pew Research Center estimates that 11 million people in the country illegally live in the U.S. Big states like California, Texas and Florida have larger numbers who potentially could have even more influence on workforces and communities. But all of those states are all solidly red or blue in presidential races — and aren’t likely to sway the election as toss-up Nevada might.

Despite having just six electoral votes, Nevada could go for either Trump or Harris. Clark County, encompassing Las Vegas, is about 75% of the state’s population and includes a sizeable number of hospitality industry workers represented by Nevada’s powerful Culinary Union, which has endorsed Harris.

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But Trump was able to turn out infrequent voters there in 2020, and did well in much of the rest of the state, which is rural and more conservative. Washoe County, home to Reno, is a perennial toss-up. Voters can also choose “None” of the presidential candidates, adding to the Nevada electorate’s famously fickle nature.

It’s all left some voters afraid of what the outcome might be.

“There’s a lot of fear,” said Nancy Valenzuela, a 48-year-old maid who works at the Strat casino. “There are people who don’t have papers. They’re like, ‘They want to throw us all out.’”



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Harris, Trump campaign in Nevada. Here’s why the state is critical this presidential race.

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Harris, Trump campaign in Nevada. Here’s why the state is critical this presidential race.


RENO — With just five days until Election Day, both presidential campaigns were zeroing in on the state of Nevada with Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump rallying there on Wednesday. 

Trump was in the city of Henderson and Harris was in the city of Reno. 

Holly and Scott Gallant drove across state lines from the Sacramento County city of Folsom to see Harris and to energize the Democratic Party vote in Nevada. 

“It’s a close race, every state counts, every electoral vote,” Scott Gallant said. 

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Trump supporters were also rallying in Nevada, with the former president seeking to turn the state red in a presidential election for the first time in two decades. 

Mike Madrid is a Republican political strategist and author of “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority is Transforming Democracy.” Madrid said Nevada is known for its blue-collar service industry and construction jobs. 

A quarter of Nevada’s voters are Latino, and there are now more voters registered as nonpartisan in the state than either Republican or Democrat. 

“So there is absolutely a different tactical and strategic approach in Nevada,” Madrid said. “The more Latino it becomes, the more independent Nevada becomes.” 

 Angel De La Rosa was at the Harris rally. He is in a carpentry union and said he has seen both parties work for Latino support. 

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“The Latino vote for Nevada is very important because, in the past, the Latino vote made the country, made the election and I think this time is going to be the same,” De La Rosa said. 

The Harris and Trump teams are taking the same tactical approach in these final days, spending their time and money in Nevada, where each campaign now views as a must-win. 



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Nevada is in a profound economic rut. Its working-class voters could swing the election

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Nevada is in a profound economic rut. Its working-class voters could swing the election


Urbin Gonzalez could be working inside, in the air conditioning, at his regular job as a porter on the Las Vegas strip. Instead, in the final few days before the US election, he chose to go door-knocking in the 104F (40C) heat, with the hopes of mobilising a few more voters to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris.

“I don’t care because I’m fighting for my situation,” said Gonzalez: for his retirement in 10 years, for a more affordable life, for housing that he and his family can afford. “I’m doing this for me.”

Gonzalez – like many workers on the strip – has struggled to keep up with rising costs in recent years. While the US economy broadly bounced back from the pandemic, Nevada has lagged behind. Nearly a quarter of jobs here are in leisure or hospitality, and although the Las Vegas Strip, where Gonzalez works, is back to booming with tourists, unemployment in Nevada remains the highest of any US state.

And working-class voters are wrestling with a big question: which candidate will help dig them out of a profound economic rut?

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Their decision will help decide the election. Nevada is one of seven US swing states that help determine the outcome of the presidential race. With its six electoral votes, Nevada has leaned Democratic in every presidential vote since 2008 – but winning candidates have scraped by with slim margins. This year, the outcome could come down to working-class voters who have been worn down by low wages and ever-higher costs.

“Nevada is a blue state, but it’s a very, very, very light blue state,” said David Byler, chief of research at the polling firm Noble Predictive Insights. “It wouldn’t take a lot of swing to turn any of those into a functional tie or a Republican win.”

Both presidential campaigns are pitching solutions that – at least at first glance – look nearly identical.

Trump raised the idea of ending taxes on tips at a June campaign rally. Harris came out with a plan to do so in August, and combined it with a promise to end the federal sub-minimum wage for tipped workers, which is $2.13 an hour.

JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, floated the idea of expanding the child tax credit to $5,000. Harris and Walz have made their plan to expand the child tax credit and cap childcare costs one of their top campaign priorities.

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Gonzalez doesn’t believe Trump will do anything to help workers – after all, the glittering hotel and casino that bears the former president’s name on the strip fought fiercely to block workers from unionising ahead of the 2016 elections. “All Trump wants to do is cut taxes for his buddies, for his rich friends, not for us,” he said. “He has shown us that.”

Donald Trump visits a restaurant in Las Vegas. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

In past years, the state’s powerful, politically engaged unions have helped buoy Democratic candidates to victory – and this year, the Culinary Union alone aims to knock on at least 900,000 doors. The AFL-CIO has also been canvassing for Harris, and the Nevada Teamsters have made a point to endorse Harris, even as the national organization declined to make an endorsement.

“The people I talk to, they hear talking points from the Trump campaign, they hear a plan from the Harris campaign,” said Max Carter, a state assemblyman and former union electrician who has been canvassing on behalf of the Harris campaign.

But Republicans have also positioned themselves as the champions of workers. “Trump’s big innovation was really going after these working-class voters,” Byler said. The former president has messaged populism and managed to distinguish himself from a past era of Republicans focused on fiscal and social conservatism, and hawkish foreign policy.

Increasingly, voters say they trust Trump over Harris to improve economic conditions and follow through on policy promises. A September poll from Noble Predictive Insights, for example, found that 47% of voters trusted Trump to ban taxes on tips, compared to 40% who trusted Harris more on the matter.

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Many voters remember the days early in the Trump administration when costs were just lower. “I think the economy was just better when Trump was president,” said Magaly Rodas, a 32-year-old mother of two who was deciding on the cost of groceries at her local Latin market.

Her husband, an electrician, has struggled to find work since the pandemic, she said – even as rent and other expenses have continued to climb. He’s also an immigrant, who has struggled to attain legal status in the US for more than a decade. Biden, Rodas said, keeps letting immigrants into the US, without any plan to help those who are already in the country. “What have the Democrats done for us in four years?” she said.


That’s a common complaint that canvassers for Make the Road Action in Nevada, a progressive group focused on turning out Latino and other minority voters. “A lot of people think – ‘Oh, the economy was better under Trump,’” said Josie Rivera, an organiser for the group.” And it’s been really disappointing to hear that a lot of Black and Latino men especially are turning more conservative or just sitting out the election and staying home.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the weeks leading up to election day found that Trump trailed Harris by just two percentage points among Hispanic men.

Canvassers for Make the Road have been working to fact-check Trump’s rhetoric that the economy was at its “best” under his presidency. They have also been talking to voters about Project 2025 – the ultra-conservative roadmap that details how the former president and his allies would restructure the US government – launching mass deportations, or dismantling education and climate programs, with disastrous consequences for immigrant and Black communities.

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A flyer for Kamala Harris is left on a gate in Las Vegas. Photograph: Mikayla Whitmore/The Guardian

“Still, we’re facing a lot of misinformation,” Rivera said. “We try to combat that, when we go door to door, with one-on-one conversations and personal testimonials. But it can still be hard to get to voters.”

Many voters of color are turned off by the president’s racist rhetoric about immigrants, but don’t necessarily take him seriously, or believe he will actually enact the extreme policies he says he will, Rivera noted. Many voters do, however, seem to trust the former president’s business acumen.

“I don’t like him as a person, but I like his economic standpoint,” said Maile McDaniel, a 22-year-old resident of Reno. “Because he’s shown that he can do it before. He’s shown he can keep inflation down, he’s shown he can make things affordable.”

As an expecting mother, McDaniel said, she’s especially concerned about childcare costs and inflated prices at the grocery store.

Childcare in Nevada is also more expensive than elsewhere in the country, and other basic expenses in the state remain, for some, unattainably high. The median home price in the Las Vegas area, for example, has far outpaced national averages, and the average rent increased by nearly a third between 2020 and 2022.

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Democrats argue that Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan brought in billions to fund everything from education to housing programs. And the president’s Inflation Reduction Act has also brought in unprecedented funding for new construction. But many of these projects are in the early stages, and it may take a while before Nevadans see the benefit.

The potential benefits of the rival proposals not to tax tips are also unclear. An analysis from the Yale Budget Lab estimated that more than a third of tipped American workers already pay no federal income tax because they earn too little.

Harris’s version of the plan would also aim to end the practice of paying tipped workers less than minimum wage, though in Nevada, all workers already are entitled to a minimum of $12 an hour, regardless of whether they earn tips. And a tax exemption for tips could also leave some workers worse off – disqualifying them from other tax credits.

Voters leaning toward either candidate also wondered why either Trump or Harris hadn’t tried to pass any of these reforms already.

“Trump was president for four years,” said Kenneth Logan, a retired bartender who lives in Las Vegas. “He says a lot of things, but he normally doesn’t follow through on them. I say if somebody tells you who they are, believe what they tell you.”

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For decades, Nevada has been an election bellwether, voting for the winner of every presidential contest since 1912 with two exceptions – the state broke for Gerald Ford in 1976, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Still, this year, even seasoned strategists and pollsters have struggled to predict which way the Silver state will swing.

Indeed, reaching voters has long been a struggle in Nevada. Its largest cities – Reno and Las Vegas – are home to a transient population, many of whom work unpredictable shifts in the state’s 24/7 entertainment and hospitality industries. The state is also incredibly diverse, and home to several immigrant communities who primarily speak Spanish or a language other than English.

Residents’ political affiliations can also be difficult to parse. Many Nevada voters have been fiercely independent for decades – voting for Democratic and Republican candidates. But new changes to the voter registration system – which automatically registers eligible voters at the DMV, and lists them as “non-partisan” by default – has increased the ranks of voters who are unaffiliated with any political party, even as voters beliefs have grown increasingly entrenched and polarised. Campaign operatives have been struggling to find these independents and figure out if they can be swayed.

Another uncertainty is how the state’s mostly Mexican American Latinos, who make up nearly 20% of Nevada’s electorate, will sway. Latino voters here have traditionally backed Democrats, though the party’s popularity is slipping. And both parties have struggled to strategically and thoughtfully message to Latinos, even as they seek desperately to win their votes.

Asian-American voters – who make up 12% of the state’s population – are another increasingly important voting bloc, and the Harris campaign especially has worked to court a growing constituency of Filipino-American voters in the state.

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In addition, there are indications that Nevada’s Latter-day Saints, who make up 6% of the state’s population and have historically been reliable Republican voters, have been turned off by Trump’s Christian nationalism.

More than any other group, however, the campaigns in Nevada have remained focused on winning the state’s workers.

“I think it’s time for all the people like us who work in those hard jobs in this country to have someone working hard for us,” said Claudio Lara, 49, who works as a housecleaner in Vegas.

He is voting for Harris, he said, because she is a child of immigrants, and a woman. “It’s time for a woman, and it’s time for a change,” he said. “We need a strong change, a sharp change in this country.”



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Election 2024 live updates: Trump, Harris both rally voters in Nevada; latest polls

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Election 2024 live updates: Trump, Harris both rally voters in Nevada; latest polls


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Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will both address supporters in a key swing state on Thursday: Nevada.

Trump is holding a rally in Henderson, Nevada, located southeast of Las Vegas, in the afternoon. That’s not the only Western state where Trump will host a campaign stop on Thursday − he’s also heading to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Harris, meanwhile, will hold rallies Oct. 31 in Reno and Las Vegas to encourage Nevada voters to go to the polls, as well as a stop in Phoenix, Arizona.

Keep up with the USA TODAY Network’s live coverage from the campaign trail.

Harris campaigns in Wisconsin Wednesday night

 Vice President Kamala Harris went back to a familiar place in the final stretch of her presidential campaign.

As she runs on preserving personal freedoms and protecting democracy, she made her pitch on Wednesday evening a few miles from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where her progressive parents participated in various civil rights causes in the late 60s. She spoke at the nearly 10,000-seat Alliant Energy Center here, to a majority-female crowd.

As president, Harris pledged that she would seek common ground and common-sense solutions to problems.“I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress,” she said in her speech.

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–Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy

Trump milks Biden’s garbage gaffe in insult-laden stump speech in Wisconsin

Former President Donald Trump made President Joe Biden’s “garbage” gaffe a central theme in his campaign rallies Wednesday. He also continued to take shots at his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Her gross incompetence disqualifies her from being president of the United States,” Trump said during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Wednesday evening. “No one respects her, no one trusts her, no one takes her seriously.” 

Trump rode into the Wisconsin event in the front seat of a personalized garbage truck, donning a neon orange trash collector’s vest. The move was in reference to Biden’s statement Tuesday, calling supporters of the former president “garbage.”

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–Savannah Kuchar and David Jackson

The 2024 race for the White House will be razor-close until Election Day. In Real Clear Politics’ average of national polls, Trump leads Harris by just 0.4 percentage points, well within the margin of error for each of the surveys included.

It’s even closer in some of the swing states that could ultimately decide the election. For example, Harris leads Trump by 0.2 percentage points in Real Clear Politics’ average of Wisconsin polls.

– Marina Pitofsky

Got election questions? Sign up for USA TODAY’s On Politics newsletter for breaking news and exclusive analysis.

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Donald Trump on Thursday is holding rallies in two Western states: New Mexico and Nevada. Trump will address Albuquerque voters in the afternoon before making a campaign stop in Henderson, located outside of Las Vegas.

The former president unveiled one of his signature campaign promises during a June rally in Las Vegas, vowing that, if elected, he would try to end federal taxes on tips, a likely winner in Nevada, whose casino and entertainment economy depends on tips.

– Marina Pitofsky, Mark Robison

Kamala Harris will hold rallies in Reno and Las Vegas, calling on Nevada voters to make a plan to vote. The Silver State is one of the pivotal swing states that could ultimately decide the 2024 election.

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It will be the vice president’s first Northern Nevada visit since landing at the top of the Democratic ticket. Her last trip was in April 2023 when she spoke with Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve and actress Rosario Dawson about reproductive rights on the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

Harris is also set to address voters in Phoenix, Arizona Arizona at a Thursday morning rally.

– Mark Robison



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