Vice President Kamala Harris has received the best presidential election polling result for Democrats in over a year in the potentially critical swing state of Nevada.

Harris, who has been riding a wave of momentum since launching her campaign following President Joe Biden’s exit from the race on July 21, is leading former President Donald Trump in The Silver State by 5.6 percent in a poll released on Friday by The Nevada Independent.

Biden won Nevada by just over 2 percent in 2020. However, the president was consistently lagging behind Trump in Nevada in nearly all polls conducted this year, with the outlier being an Emerson College/The Hill survey that showed Biden drawing level with the ex-president.

Limited polling conducted since Harris became Trump’s opponent has revealed mixed but far more positive results for Democrats. A Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll released late last month showed the vice president up by 2 points. Other polls show Trump with a slim lead or the race tied.

The Nevada Independent survey, conducted by pollster and Columbia University lecturer David Wolfson, was the best result for the Democratic presidential ticket since a Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll released in October showed Biden leading Trump by 3 percentage points.

The new poll, which was conducted among 991 likely Nevada voters from August 3 to August 5, showed that Harris was favored by 49.2 percent of respondents. Trump was supported by 43.6 percent of voters, while independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was preferred by 3.9 percent. The poll has a 3 percent margin of error.

Wolfson suggested that the results were less the product of enthusiasm for Harris and more an indication of support for Democrats other than Biden, telling The Nevada Independent that there had been “a collective sigh of relief that Joe Biden is not going to be running” and any other Democrat “would be polling as well at this point of the race.”

A Nevada Independent poll released in April 2023, which was conducted partially before Biden announced his plans to then seek a second term, showed the incumbent Democrat leading Trump by 8 points in a hypothetical 2020 rematch.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email on Friday evening.

Nevada is not the only swing state where Harris has made significant polling gains less than three weeks since entering the race. Averages of recent polls compiled by polling website FiveThirtyEight also showed the vice president with small leads over Trump in the crucial “Rust Belt” swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as of Friday.

Trump’s leads in Nevada’s fellow “Sun Belt” swing states of Georgia and Arizona have been whittled down to less than 1 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight averages. Biden won all six of the battleground states in 2020, mostly by slim margins.

On Thursday, the Cook Political Report moved 2024 forecasts of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia from “lean Republican” to “toss-up” states. Sabato’s Crystal Ball also shifted Georgia, Minnesota and New Hampshire toward the Democrats this week, with Minnesota and New Hampshire moving to “likely Democrat” and Georgia becoming a “toss-up.”

U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen prides herself on being one of the most bipartisan senators in Congress, but on Thursday at a Las Vegas roundtable on reproductive freedom, Rosen unloaded on Republicans – including her 2024 election opponent, Sam Brown. 

“If Republicans take back the Senate, they’ll do everything they can to ban abortion across the country and right here in Nevada,” she said. “We can’t trust a word they’re saying, not when it’s an election year.” 

Rosen said Brown, who unsuccessfully ran for state office in Texas and supported extreme anti-abortion legislation, “will do or say anything to get elected. That’s why he’s trying to cover up his anti-choice record.”

Rosen was leading Brown in polls before Pres. Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. 

On Saturday, she’ll attend Vice-President Kamala Harris’ rally in Las Vegas, where she says she’s looking forward to greeting Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Rosen was joined at the event by Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY’s List, a powerful national organization that supports pro-choice candidates. 

Mackler said the issue at the heart of the upcoming is “what is the future that we want for this country, and are people going to choose a path that is about this very narrow world view in which our choices are controlled, or are we going to choose a future in which everybody has an opportunity?”

Rosen lashed out at the Supreme Court, noting nominees “promised the people that Roe was the law of the land and they went back on their word,” she said of the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion. 

Rosen, who has already voiced support for some of Pres. Joe Biden’s Supreme Court reforms, says term limits for the high court’s justices would help hold them accountable and “might take off some of this oppression people feel about appointing judges for a lifetime. They can be there forever, and I think it would make the court more receptive to really doing their job and being arbitrators.”

Biden’s proposed reforms include 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices, an enforceable code of conduct, and a constitutional amendment that no former president is immune from prosecution for crimes committed in office.

Tips and taxes

Despite her election year distrust of Republicans, Rosen defended her support of Sen. Ted Cruz’ No Tax on Tips Act, a concept former Pres. Donald Trump says he got from a waitress in Las Vegas while having lunch. 

“I got my information from a very smart waitress,” he said at a rally in Las Vegas in June. “They make money. Let them keep their money.” 

The Center for American Progress says that because many hospitality workers earn low wages, about a third pay no taxes and would not benefit from the measure. Some may no longer qualify for breaks, such as the Earned Income Credit, if they don’t report tip income. 

Additionally, the proposed legislation, if enacted, could spawn abuse by wealthy taxpayers who could find loopholes in the law that would allow them to classify income as tips and avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the government. 

“I can tell you that 25% of the Nevada workforce is in the hospitality industry, and they heavily rely on tips,”  Rosen said, noting she is the chairwoman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion. 

She added that Culinary Local 226 supports the legislation, which was introduced by Cruz in June, and has become a rallying cry for Trump. It is also supported by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada. “This is going to help those tipped workers be able to not pay taxes on tips,” Rosen said. 

In follow-up questions submitted by the Current, Rosen did not say by deadline whether she’d insist on guardrails to deter taxpayers from exploiting loopholes, or which workers would find tax relief via the measure.

Bethany Khan, spokeswoman for Culinary Local 226, says the union has no data indicating at what income levels workers would benefit from the measure.

Almost two years after Gov. Joe Lombardo scrapped his Democratic predecessor’s statewide plan to address climate change, he released a shorter version this week that emphasizes Nevada’s mining industry and promotes clean energy.

The 33-page “Climate Innovation Plan” focuses on Nevada’s production of minerals needed to transition away from fossil fuels and the removal of federal red tape for clean energy projects. It’s much different from former Gov. Steve Sisolak’s 255-page plan, no longer available on the internet, that set clearer carbon emission reduction goals.

In a statement released online, Lombardo said the document addresses Nevada’s changing climate in a way that considers the economy and national security.

“By harnessing clean energy, improving energy efficiency, and fostering economic growth, we’re establishing Nevada as a leader in climate solutions,” Lombardo said. “By addressing these environmental challenges locally, we’re able to strengthen the future of our state for generations to come.”

The plan has drawn the ire of Nevada Democrats and some environmentalists who say it lacks a clear vision for combating climate change in what climate scientists say is the nation’s driest state with the two fastest-warming cities.

Lombardo also pulled Nevada from the multi-state U.S. Climate Alliance last July. Nevada’s state climatologist, Tom Albright, said he wasn’t consulted in the planning process.

The governor’s spokeswoman declined to make him available for an interview but said in a statement that the plan focused on “reducing carbon emissions without providing an unrealistic timeline for reduction.” Environmental stewardship isn’t a partisan issue, she added.

Gemma Smith, an Arizona State University public policy professor, said Nevada having a climate change mitigation plan at all is a positive. While cities and counties can put forth goals at the local level — like the All-In Clark County Plan — some issues require a statewide lens, such as policy encouraging the use of electric vehicles, she said.

But including no distinct data is to the new plan’s detriment, Smith said, especially when compared with Sisolak’s more comprehensive plan.

“It’s quite difficult to evaluate the new Nevada climate plan from a scientific or a policy perspective because it doesn’t really outline specific metrics or goals,” Smith said. “Still, there needs to be some sort of unifying vision.”

Sisolak said he had not yet read the new plan in full.

“It’s a step back from what we did,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday. “We wanted something that could be measured and quantified, but he decided to go in a different direction.”

Assembly Minority Leader Philip P.K. O’Neill, R-Carson City, said in a brief phone interview that Lombardo’s plan corrects Sisolak’s lofty plan — a clear overreach of government, in his view.

“This brings things back into reality,” he said. “It’s attainable and realistic.”

How do these plans compare?

Aside from helping clean energy projects go live faster and advocating for Nevada to produce important minerals such as lithium, used in electric vehicle batteries, Lombardo’s plan discusses managing wildfire threats and the agriculture industry’s efforts to sequester carbon, where carbon dioxide is stored in soil.

After listing seven goals, Lombardo’s plan lists dozens of initiatives already in motion, including various grants and ongoing programs like PFAS monitoring in the state’s water, efforts to establish more electric vehicle charging stations, and Nevada’s role in continued Colorado River negotiations.

It mentions Nevada’s contract with NZero, a green tech company that a ProPublica investigation found secured millions in government contracts without delivering carbon emission data it had promised.

Sisolak’s plan more heavily relied on citing available science and community engagement, consulting more than 1,500 people across the state via listening sessions.

The document notably spoke of how Nevada would work to implement Senate Bill 254, which set carbon emission reduction goals: 28 percent by 2025, 45 percent by 2030, and net-zero — or near-zero — by 2050.

Criticism and praise

Some Democratic legislators like Assemblywoman Selena La Rue Hatch and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager took to social media to express their disappointment in the plan, which they think takes credit for some of the work put in motion under the Sisolak administration.

“If one of my students submitted an essay like this ‘climate plan,’ I would give it back to be rewritten,” wrote La Rue Hatch, a public schoolteacher in Washoe County who serves on the Legislature’s Joint Interim Natural Resources Committee. “Even my students know that taking credit for the work of others and offering vague statements with zero evidence to support them is not good enough.”

Attempts to reach the three Republican members of the committee Thursday were unsuccessful.

Doing everything in Nevada’s power to shorten timelines for new mining and energy projects on public land is important to the state’s much hotter future, O’Neill said.

It’s the same environmentalists who take green energy companies to court that are calling for emissions to be reduced, he said.

“Then they’ll turn around and say, ‘Hey, we need green energy,’” O’Neill said. “You can’t have it both ways.”

The Nevada Clean Energy Fund did not respond to a request for comment about the governor’s push to fast-track mining and clean energy. A Nevada Mining Association spokeswoman said the group’s president, Amanda Hilton, was not available to comment Thursday.

Environmental groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Nevada Conservation League weighed in on the plan, characterizing it as one without an accountability function.

“We’re gutted to see Governor Lombardo publish his alleged ‘Climate Innovation Plan’ without consultation or collaboration from the everyday people he represents, community organizations and conservation leaders in Nevada,” said Christi Cabrera-Georgeson, the Nevada Conservation League’s deputy director.

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.