Nevada
On the Utah-Nevada border, a ‘swing city’ gears up for 2024
Straddling the border of Nevada and Utah, the community of Wendover is split in two. On the Nevada side, voters could help decide the next U.S. president. Across the street, in Utah, voters almost certainly won’t.
Thanks to the Electoral College system, the 2024 election will likely be determined by a handful of swing states. Utah, which has voted for the Republican nominee in every election since 1964, is not one of them. Nevada, which President Joe Biden won by two percentage points in 2020, is.
That has turned half of Wendover into a battleground. In West Wendover, Nevada, campaigns are already flooding residents with robocalls and texts messages, and super PACs are filling mailboxes with flyers. “We really get hit hard with that,” West Wendover Mayor Jasie Holm said. “It’s overwhelming. It’s a little bit much.”
Both candidates have taken notice. During the 2024 cycle, Biden has visited Nevada three times, and Donald Trump has visited four. Trump’s fifth visit will be this Sunday, when he rallies in Las Vegas.
Down the road, on the Utah side of the border, things are quiet. “They’re dynamic, and we’re not,” said Mayor Dennis Sweat of Wendover, Utah. “It’s really that simple.”
The two cities have long viewed themselves largely as one community. Efforts have been made to annex Wendover into Nevada and form a single city; the last push, in 2001, stalled in the U.S. Senate. West Wendover observes Mountain time zone, the only city in Nevada to do so, in a show of unity with its other half.
While business has boomed and the population has grown in West Wendover on the Nevada side, the sleepy town of Wendover hovers around a population of 1,000 people. Most of Wendover’s residents work in West Wendover, population 5,000, where the casinos — the city’s biggest employers — are legal.
Wendover’s annual city budget is less than $2 million; West Wendover’s is $16 million. A recent Las Vegas Journal-Review analysis found that public employees in West Wendover were paid much higher than their counterparts in Wendover. One of the Utah town’s biggest challenges is convincing city employees — from city managers to police — to stay. “This is one of the conundrums living next to West Wendover. They have money,” said Sweat. “You could live in the same home and make a whole lot more money, just working across the line.”
In an election year, that state line serves as a delineator for more than salaries.
Experts predict that Nevada — along with Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — are this year’s battleground states for the presidential election.
In past election cycles, Nevada has been a bellwether for the country. It has been a swing state in every election since 2008, and since 1976, the Republican and Democratic candidates have each won the state six times. In that span, the candidate who won Nevada went on to win the White House 10 of 12 times.
In 2020, Biden edged Trump in Nevada by two percentage points. But Biden’s approval rating in the state now hovers in the mid-30s, and polls show Trump with an edge, thanks to voters’ widespread discontentment with the economy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll suggests that the economy is the top issue for Nevada voters, followed by immigration. Most Nevada voters (56%) rate the economy as “poor”; less than 20% rate it as “good” or “excellent.”
That discontent is reflected in voters’ opinions: 61% of Nevadans say they trust Trump to do a better job on the economy; 32% say they trust Biden.
“It is concerning to me when I keep seeing press come out of the White House where they keep saying the economy is good,” one Nevada voter told The New York Times when the polling data was released. “That’s really weird, because I’m paying more on taxes and more on groceries and more on housing and more on fuel. So that doesn’t feel good.”
In addition to determining the presidential race, Nevadans could help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. The Nevada Senate race is one of the three “toss-up” elections, according to the Cook Political Report, that could determine whether Democrats maintain a slim majority or Republicans retake control of the upper chamber. The outcome will be crucial in determining how effective Biden or Trump are in carrying out their legislative agendas.
Of course, their battleground-state status does not make Nevada voters inherently better than Utahns — only more influential. “‘Swing’ or ‘battleground’ states are mere accidents of geography,” wrote Jack Rackove, emeritus professor of political science at Stanford University. “They do not matter because they have any special civic characteristics. They simply happen to be states that become competitive because of their demography, and which are readily identifiable as such because of the increasing sophistication of political polling.”
That accident is fortuitous for those who live on the west side of the Nevada-Utah border. Elko County, Nevada, is usually red, but West Wendover leans more blue — “that makes us a swing city in a swing state,” Holm said. During the 2020 cycle, West Wendover got a visit from a Democratic presidential candidate, Julian Castro. The town’s last mayor, Daniel Corona, is now a deputy political director on the Biden campaign. There is chatter of a prominent Biden surrogate, perhaps first gentleman Doug Emhoff, making a visit to the town before November. (Holm, for her part, likes the idea. “I would be honored to meet the president,” she said, grinning.)
Meanwhile, Wendover has never, in its 116-year history, welcomed a presidential candidate to town. Utah hasn’t been a swing state since the 1940s, and the Republican candidate has won every election by at least 15 percentage points in 14 straight election cycles. In Wendover, the reality of a single-party state — mixed with small-town priorities — leads to something like ambivalence. “Nobody really cares about national politics all that much here,” said Sweat. “You just go to work, do your eight hours, go home and live your life.”
Ahead of November’s election, Holm, the mayor of West Wendover, expects things to get chaotic. “It’s brewing up,” she said. “I think we’re going to get hit hard with signs and calls and people getting their opinion out.” She doesn’t plan on making an endorsement, but she has an elaborate plan to encourage her city to vote: “I will tell them where to vote, how to vote, all the voting information that they need: mail-in vote, come up to City Hall and vote,” she said.
Across town, in Wendover, things are much more quiet. “We usually run a newspaper ad, encouraging residents to vote,” Sweat said. “But that’s about as much effort as we put into it.”
And just like that, Congress is out of session again and the election is less than 40 days away.
Excuse the Carrie Bradshaw-ism there, but the government is now funded through December, and all that’s left to do is see who wins. There will likely be a flurry of legislative effort in the lame duck session, but the Nevada delegation achieved a big, bipartisan win this week with the passage of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act. Since this is a Nevada-centric issue, we’re jumping right to The Nevada Angle.
Let’s get into it.
The Nevada Angle
A bill to keep federal funds flowing to Lake Tahoe for another 10 years is now awaiting the president’s signature after successful passage in both chambers.
The Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act, introduced by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) in March 2023 and co-sponsored by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and the senators from California, is the third iteration of the original Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2000.
That bill, championed by the late Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Harry Reid (D-NV), established a $300 million fund for restoration projects around the lake, including invasive species removal, new trails and wildfire resilience activities. Critically, as an authorized program, these projects don’t have to go through the annual appropriations process and are not subject to the whims of partisan control or budgetary priorities. The funding is already in place — an authorization just allows those funds to continue to be used.
In 2016, spearheaded by then-Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), a reauthorization was passed and $415 million appropriated. That reauthorization was set to expire Sept. 30.
The 2024 reauthorization includes no new money — there is nearly $300 million left in the fund — but extends the time to spend it by another 10 years.
The bill passed the Senate in July by unanimous consent, and the House by voice vote Tuesday.
“I’m proud of our bipartisan work to deliver funding for vital programs that keep the lake clean, support local jobs, and support our tourism economy,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “It is an honor to help lead Team Tahoe and fight for the resources the basin needs to thrive.”
In the House, the bill was supported by all four Nevadans and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), who represents the California side of the lake. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), who led the effort in the House, said the coalition intentionally used the Senate version of the bill that had already passed in order to eliminate any administrative delays.
“We took the Senate bill, so you don’t have to go back and forth,” he said.
Tahoe advocacy has always been a bipartisan undertaking. The annual Lake Tahoe Summit, a tradition that began in 1997, traditionally features speeches from lawmakers of both parties and both states.
Tahoe advocates testified on behalf of the bill in front of a House subcommittee earlier in September. They noted that the federal funding is a critical piece of the conservation program, which has undertaken more than 830 projects since its formation in 1997.
“In the thick of election season, the successful bipartisan effort to pass the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act is something the whole country can celebrate,” Darcie Goodman Collins, the CEO of League to Save Lake Tahoe, said in a statement. “In every conversation we have with lawmakers, we hear nothing but commitment to protect this national treasure.”
Around the Capitol
🇺🇦From Las Vegas to Kyiv — Cortez Masto led all five Democrats in the Nevada delegation in a letter urging the Biden administration to loosen restrictions on how Ukraine can use U.S.-made weapons.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked President Joe Biden this week for the ability to use U.S.-made long-range missiles to strike targets deep into Russia — a request that has divided Ukraine allies. Several members of Congress and administration figures, including the Nevadans now, have urged Biden to relent, hoping it can bring a speedier end to the war.
⚡Lee-backed geothermal bill passes House — A bill to expedite the development of geothermal energy co-sponsored by Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) passed the House by voice vote Wednesday. The bill creates a categorical exclusion to the environmental review process for permitting of geothermal wells in areas where drilling has already occurred or been approved in the past five years.
💰$$$ to ABTC — American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), a Reno company that manufactures and recycles lithium ion batteries, is receiving $150 million from the Department of Energy as part of the Biden administration’s effort to supercharge the domestic lithium battery supply chain. ABTC has been the beneficiary of several federal grants and programs, including claiming $60 million in tax credits from the Democrats’ signature clean-energy law to build its battery recycling facilities. This grant will go toward building a second battery recycling facility.
What I’m Reading
The Washington Post: Harris pushes to recapture Latino support that fell under Biden
The Biden 2020 number she’s chasing in Nevada: +26.
The Nevada Independent: Horsford moves to censure Louisiana Republican over racist post
It got heated on the House floor this week.
NPR: Q&A: Nevada Sen. Cortez Masto on teaming up with VP Harris as attorneys general
On a potential Cabinet position in a Harris administration: “I’m a third generation Nevadan, and my goal is to stay there and continue to represent the people of my state.”
Notable and Quotable
“If you can connect with everybody there as a swing state, you’re going to be on your way to making that connection across the country.”
— Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), to NPR, on why making sure a candidate plays in Nevada is so important
Vote of the Week
H.R. 9747 — On Passage: Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025
The government is temporarily funded — and all Nevadans are in support.
AMODEI: Yes
HORSFORD: Yes
LEE: Yes
TITUS: Yes
About 45 Southern Nevadans are headed to assist with recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Nevada Task Force-1 is one of 28 Federal Emergency Management Administration teams that have been activated to assist efforts in the storm area. The team left Las Vegas about noon Friday.
At least 40 people were killed overnight after Helene came ashore late Thursday east of Tallahassee, Florida, and ripped through several states.
“Currently they have been assigned to report to Atlanta, but this can change,” Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Billy Samuels said in an email. “The anticipated travel time is approximately 30 hours. Typically, these missions are for 14 days, but can be shorter or longer depending upon the need of the communities and the incident.”
The capabilities of the team consists of search, recovery, rescue, heavy rigging, water operations, rescue K-9s, intelligence gathering and whatever else the community needs, Samuels said.
Team members come from the Clark County Fire Department, Las Vegas Fire Department, North Las Vegas Fire Department, Boulder City Fire Department, and Henderson Fire Department, but the team also includes private civilians.
Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Friday, Nevada Task Force One was notified of possible deployment to assist in Hurricane Helene.
Program Manager Kenyon Leavitt received an alert notification around 3 a.m. Around 8 a.m., it was upgraded to a Type III activation. According to Clark County, that consists of 45 personnel.
NV-TF1 is one of 28 FEMA teams. It includes personnel from the Clark County Fire Department, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, North Las Vegas Fire Department, Boulder City Fire Department, Henderson Fire Department, and private civilians.
The county says they are headed to Atlanta. It will take the team about 30 hours to travel and the mission could last for 14 days.
The capabilities of this team consist of: Search, Recovery, Rescue, Heavy Rigging, Water Operations, Rescue K’9s, Intelligence Gathering, etc., and whatever else the community needs.
“We would like to thank all the supporting members on helping get this team out the door,” Clark County says. “We will periodically update Southern Nevada with how their efforts are going.”
Southern Nevada’s Red Cross team is also deploying two volunteers to Hurricane Helene.
Copyright 2024 KVVU. All rights reserved.
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