LAS VEGAS — Sin City Republicans felt a rare emotion this week as President Biden rambled on during a shambolic 90-minute debate performance — optimism that Nevada will pick former President Donald Trump come November.
It’s been 20 years since a Republican won the Silver State’s electoral votes. In 2004, President George W. Bush claimed the state’s five electors, now standing at six. Trump lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton eight years ago and to Biden in 2020, as the state became more and more blue.
Gathering for a state GOP watch party at the Italian American Club, one of the city’s oldest eateries, the ex-prez’s supporters were at first hopeful but guarded, a mood that was not helped by initial glitches in getting the video and audio of the CNN-hosted debate working properly.
But as the match wore on, Biden’s clear issues answering questions by turns shocked and saddened the crowd.
“I could not understand even two sentences [of] what he was trying to say,” noted Cristiane Mersch, a Summerlin resident and development manager for a crisis pregnancy center. “It worries me. I think he needs a medical, mental exam because he’s not capable to be a president right now.”
Joe Burdzinski, a Las Vegas resident, said “the look at times” on the president’s face was concerning.
“He had a blank expression on his face, his eyeballs would be bulging sometimes,” he said. “His words, especially in his closing statement, he mumbled in his last two minutes.”
Burdzinski said Biden’s comment about more “fentanyl machines” being needed to combat the influx of the deadly synthetic opioid bewildered him.
“During the debate, when he was talking about machines, I couldn’t figure out what kind of machines he was talking about as related to drugs. I don’t know where that fit in or how that worked,” the local said.
Burdzinski, who’s been involved with GOP efforts for 49 years, said he was “feeling the same type of momentum, if you will, that Ronald Reagan experienced in 1980 against Jimmy Carter.”
He added, “I think the economy is a key issue in this election. And under Donald Trump, the economy was doing better gas prices, lower food cost and so on were lower and that will make a big difference here with Democrats and independents.”
Mersch, who heads the local Moms for Liberty chapter and spoke at the June 9 outdoor Trump campaign rally, said the ex-prez’s promise to end taxing of tips offers “a great potential of Trump winning here.”
She said, “I see a lot of people, especially in the culinary industry,” moving toward the presumptive GOP nominee over tax-free tipping.
“Those Latinos, the hard-working families, are being affected by Biden’s policies,” she said.
Political consultant Zachary Hayes said he believes Trump “will probably take the state,” having “come close” in 2020, when he lost to Biden by 33,606 votes.
“I think Biden’s lost too much ground in the state, and the state is getting more favorable to the GOP over time, because it’s more blue collar and working class,” Hayes said. “And the demographic, the changes in how the electorate is voting based on class lines favors the GOP.”
Linda Cassaro, a Buffalo, New York, native who’s lived in Las Vegas for 40 years, believes Biden’s debate disaster should be a wake-up call for Nevada’s Democrats.
“I’m not sure who they would put in his place, but they should be worried.”
She thinks Trump will “definitely” win the state and is “gonna do good things for the country like he did the first time he was elected.”
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.
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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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