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.”
A recent Review-Journal letter to the editor mischaracterized Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, also known as the Clark County Lands bill. As the former executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, I wholeheartedly support this legislation, so I wanted to set the record straight.
Sen. Cortez Masto has been working on this bill for years in partnership with state and local governments, conservation groups like the NCL and local area tribes. It’s true that the Clark County lands bill would open 25,000 acres to help Las Vegas grow responsibly, while setting aside 2 million acres for conservation. It would also help create more affordable housing throughout the valley while ensuring our treasured public spaces can be preserved for generations to come.
What is not correct is that the money from these land sales would go to the federal government’s coffers. In fact, the opposite is true.
The 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a landmark bill that identified specific public land for future sale and created a special account ensuring all land sale revenues would come back to Nevada. In accordance with that law 5 percent of revenue from land transfers goes to the state of Nevada for general education purposes, 10 percent goes to the Southern Nevada Water Authority for needed water infrastructure and 85 percent supports conservation and environmental mitigation projects in Southern Nevada. This legislation has provided billions to Clark County and will continue to benefit generations of Southern Nevadans. Sen. Cortez Masto’s lands bill builds upon the act’s success.
So here’s the good news: All of the money generated from land made available for sale under Sen. Cortez Masto’s bill would be sent to the special account created by the 1998 law. Rather than going to an unaccountable federal government, the proceeds would continue to help kids in Vegas get a better education, bolster outdoor recreation and modernize Southern Nevada’s infrastructure.
I know how important it is that money generated from the sale of public land in Nevada stay in the hands of Nevadans, and so does the senator. That’s why she opposed a Republican effort last year to sell off 200,000 acres of land in Clark County and other areas of the country that would have sent those dollars directly to Washington.
Public land management in Nevada should benefit Nevadans. We should protect sacred cultural sites and beloved recreation spaces, responsibly transfer land for affordable housing when needed and ensure our state has the resources it needs to grow sustainably. I will continue working with Sen. Cortez Masto to advocate for legislation, such as the Clark County lands bill, that puts the needs of Nevadans first.
Paul Selberg writes from Las Vegas.
click to expand photos
Las Vegas High’s baseball team claimed a 3-2 home win over Coronado on Friday.
Las Vegas (9-13-1) next hosts Rancho at 10 a.m. Saturday. Coronado (13-14) hosts Chaparral at 3:30 p.m. Monday.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Nevada’s jobless rate is holding steady, but the state is still adding jobs.
A new report from DETR shows February’s unemployment rate unchanged at 5.3 percent, with the labor force growing by nearly 3,800 people.
MORE ON FOX5: Nevada unemployment rate rises to 5.3% in January
Nevada now has about 1.6 million nonfarm jobs, up 2.2 percent over the past year and 1,500 more jobs than in January.
“This month’s report shows a strengthening labor market,” said David Schmidt, Chief Economist. ”Compared to the report for January, the pace of job gains in the past year increased from 1.9% to 2.2%, building on what was already the fastest pace of job growth in the country. While the unemployment rate remained stable, the labor force participation rate rose to 63.7%, 1.7 percentage points higher than the national level.”
In Las Vegas, employment ticked up by 1,100 jobs in February, about 0.1 percent, and is up more than 25,000 jobs compared to last year.
Reno added 1,000 jobs on the month, while Carson City shed about 200 but is still slightly above where it was a year ago.
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