Nevada
President Joe Biden to visit Nevada, Arizona, Texas this week
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is embarking on a three-day campaign swing aimed at shoring up his standing in the Sun Belt as part of an aggressive play to reenergize vital parts of his 2020 electoral coalition.
Much of Biden’s time on this trip this week, which includes stops in Nevada, Arizona and Texas, will be geared toward courting the Latino voters who helped power his coalition in 2020 and to emphasizing his pro-union, pro-abortion rights message.
The Democratic president’s first stop Tuesday is in Reno, Nevada, where he will meet with local officials and campaign volunteers in Washoe County before heading to Las Vegas to promote his administration’s housing policies.
Next he’ll travel to Phoenix for another campaign stop in a critical swing county paired with an event talking up what he has done to bolster the computer chip manufacturing sector.
Biden’s push with Latino voters this week, which includes the formal launch of the Latinos con Biden-Harris (Spanish for Latinos with Biden-Harris) initiative on Tuesday, is also part of the campaign’s broader efforts to put in place the infrastructure to re-engage various constituencies that will be critical to the president’s reelection. That effort is all the more crucial as key parts of Biden’s base, such as Black and Hispanic adults, have become increasingly disenchanted with the president’s performance in office.
In an AP-NORC poll conducted in February, 38% of U.S. adults approved of how Biden was handling his job. Nearly 6 in 10 Black adults (58%) approved, compared to 36% of Hispanic adults. Black adults are more likely than white and Hispanic adults to approve of Biden, but that approval has dropped in the three years since Biden took office.
Biden’s reelection campaign, along with allied Democratic groups, has opened offices in Washoe County and in specific areas of Las Vegas that aides said will help the campaign to target Black, Latino and Asian American voters.
Bilingual campaign organizers are already in place in Arizona, and the campaign has opened an office in Maryvale, a major Latino community in Phoenix. The campaign has hired more than 40 staffers in Nevada and Arizona.
Campaign officials believe that tuned-out voters are starting to pay attention to the reality of a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump now that the two candidates have clinched their respective nominations. They’re trying to boost coalition-building efforts in battleground states now that the matchup is set, using the energy coming out of Biden’s State of the Union earlier this month to jolt their campaign momentum.
That includes, for example, ensuring that chapters are in place across college campuses so that students have a place to organize and that campaign offices are open and stocked with yard signs, campaign literature and other materials. Democrats are hoping that Trump and the GOP will struggle to catch up in key states.
The campaign has already established Women for Biden-Harris, an effort led by first lady Jill Biden to mobilize female voters who were a vital part of Biden’s winning coalition in 2020, as well as Students for Biden-Harris, which will focus on getting young voters organized and active. Latinos con Biden-Harris will formally launch at Biden’s Phoenix stop on Tuesday and include other campaign events, such as volunteer trainings and house parties, in other battleground states including Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin later this week.
“This isn’t stuff that you can just stand up. This is stuff that requires work,” Quentin Fulks, principal deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign, said in an interview. “It does require training. It does require making sure that your volunteers and supporters have what they need on the ground.”
Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee dismissed dozens of staffers after new leaders closely aligned with Trump took over last week. Those let go include people who worked at the party’s community centers that helped build relationships with minority groups in some Democratic-leaning areas. The committee’s new leadership has since insisted that those centers will remain open.
The RNC, already strapped for cash, is also trying to bat away assumptions that it’ll pay for Trump’s ever-escalating legal bills as he faces multiple criminal cases.
Still, the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party are confronting their own struggles, despite their cash and organizational advantages. On top of Biden’s weaker job performance numbers, Democrats are seeing less support from key voting blocs come election time: While Biden won 63% of Hispanic voters in 2020, that percentage shrunk to 57% for Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterms, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate.
Despite the waning approval numbers, campaign officials say they are confident that once the contrast between the president’s agenda and Trump’s plans for a second term are presented to disillusioned members of Biden’s coalition, they will ultimately back the president.
“I can say this as a Latina, we always come late to the party. We like to make a grand entrance,” said Democratic strategist Maria Cardona. “I think that’s what you will see again because when it comes down to people making a real decision that is consequential to their future, the future of their children, the future of their communities, it’s not some random phone call from an anonymous pollster — I think that the Democratic coalition will come home.”
Alongside the campaign stops, the administration is pairing official White House events on matters that have particular significance in the two states. In Arizona, Biden will continue talking up a law he signed encouraging domestic manufacturing of computer chips, which has already spurred significant private investment in the state, especially in Phoenix.
And in Nevada, Biden will continue promoting a new housing proposal that would offer a mortgage relief credit for first-time homebuyers and a seller’s tax credit to encourage homeowners to offload their starter homes. The issue of housing is sure to resonate in Nevada, where home prices have nearly doubled since early 2016, according to Zillow, the online real estate marketplace.
“As the president has said, the bottom line is, we have to build, build, build,” said Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., stressed that Democrats cannot take the state — which has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004 — for granted, even as she dismissed some polling that shows Trump with an edge in Nevada.
“You got to be there talking to voters, particularly in Nevada,” Cortez Masto said. “It’s still small enough, it’s 3 million people, they expect you to show up, right? It’s a swing state. It’s very diverse. And people just expect that type of engagement, so they can decide for themselves.”
Biden’s three-day trip will wrap up in Texas, where he will host a trio of fundraisers in Dallas and Houston.
Nevada
Kalshi Enforcement Action Belongs in Nevada Court, Judge Says
Nevada state court is the proper venue for reviewing whether KalshiEX LLC is improperly accepting sports wagers without a license, a federal district court said.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board showed that the state statutes under which it seeks relief don’t require interpreting federal law, Judge Miranda M. Du of the US District Court for the District of Nevada said in a Monday order. The board’s action is now remanded to the First Judicial District Court in Carson City, Nev., the order said.
The board in 2025 urged Kalshi, a financial services company, to get a gaming license, but the …
Nevada
EDITORIAL: Nevada still vulnerable as tourist downturn continues
Strip gaming executives can put their best spin on the numbers, but local tourism indicators remain a major concern. Casino operators seeking to draw more people through the door still have much work to do.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board released January gaming numbers Friday. The news was underwhelming. The state gaming win was down 6.6 percent from a year earlier. The Strip took the largest hit, an 11 percent drop. But the gloomy returns were spread throughout Clark County: Downtown Las Vegas was off 5.2 percent, Laughlin suffered a 3.3 percent decline and the Boulder Strip dipped by 7 percent.
For the current fiscal year, gaming tax collections are up a paltry
2.1 percent, below budget projections.
The red flags include more than gaming numbers. Recently released figures for 2025 reveal that visitation to Las Vegas fell nearly 8 percent from 2024, which represented the lowest total since the pandemic in 2021. Traffic at Reid International Airport fell more than 10 percent in December and was down 6 percent for the year. Strip occupancy rates fell 3 percent in 2025.
To be fair, this is not just a Las Vegas problem. International travel to the United States was down
4.8 percent in January, Forbes reported, the ninth straight month of decline. Travel from Europe fell 5.2 percent, and passenger counts from Asia fell 7.5 percent. Canadian tourism cratered by 22 percent.
No doubt that President Donald Trump’s blustery rhetoric has played a role in the decline, but there’s more at work. International tourism has been largely flat since Barack Obama’s last few years in office. But domestic travel has held relatively steady although it is “starting to cool,” according to the U.S. Travel Association. Las Vegas hasn’t been helped by high-profile complaints last year about exorbitant Strip prices for parking, bottled water and other staples. Casino operators responded by offering discounts, particularly for locals, and they’ll need to continue those policies into 2026.
The tourism downturn has ramifications for the state budget, which relies primarily on sales and gaming tax revenues to support spending plans. “Nevada’s employment and economic challenges reflect deep structural factors that extend beyond cyclical economic fluctuations,” noted a recent report by economic analyst John Restrepo. “The state’s extreme concentration in tourism and gaming creates unique vulnerabilities.”
The irony is that state and local politicians have been talking for the past half century about “diversifying” the state economy. In recent years, that effort has primarily consisted of handing out millions in tax breaks and other incentives to attract businesses to the state. A dispassionate observer might ask whether that approach has brought an adequate return on investment.
Nevada
2026 lunar eclipse visible in Nevada. How to watch
How to Watch Nevada’s 2026 Lunar Eclipse
A total lunar eclipse will cross Nevada skies early Tuesday morning. Here’s when totality begins and where to watch.
A lunar eclipse will be in Nevada skies late Monday night — or, more accurately, early Tuesday morning, March 3.
The downside is the hour: you’ll have to be up very late or very early, depending on your perspective.
Unlike a solar eclipse, which occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, a lunar eclipse happens when Earth casts its shadow on the moon, creating a rusty red hue.
If you’re looking to see the lunar eclipse, here’s everything you need to know about viewing it in Nevada.
What eclipse is in 2026?
If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the lunar eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026, according to NASA. During the night, you’ll see the moon in a reddish hue, or a blood moon.
Totality lasts for a little more than an hour before the moon begins to emerge from behind Earth’s shadow, according to the popular site timeanddate.com. As the moon moves into Earth’s shadow, also known as the umbra, it appears red-orange or a “ghostly copper color,” hence its name: blood moon, NASA says.
“During a lunar eclipse, the moon appears red or orange because any sunlight that’s not blocked by our planet is filtered through a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere on its way to the lunar surface,” NASA says. “It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the moon.”
Countdown clock to the 2026 total lunar eclipse
If you live in the U.S., you will be able to see the eclipse starting at 12:44 a.m. PST Tuesday, March 3, 2026.
The entire eclipse will last about six hours. People in Nevada can see the lunar eclipse during the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 3, 2026. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.
Everything will be over by 6:23 a.m. PST on March 3, 2026. Below is a countdown clock for the 2026 total lunar eclipse.
Where are the best places to see the lunar eclipse near Reno?
Though the Biggest Little City has an abundance of light pollution, darker skies are less than an hour from Reno.
- Fort Churchill State Park: The park provides a dark night sky ideal for evening astronomical events among the ruins of Fort Churchill. Park entrance costs $5 for Nevada residents and $10 for nonresidents.
- Pyramid Lake: A popular spot for Renoites seeking a night of stargazing, the lake is less than an hour from The Biggest Little City. It offers beautiful natural wonders and dark skies that give a clear view of the lunar eclipse.
- Lake Tahoe: Multiple locations around the lake are excellent for stargazing that are less than an hour from Reno.
- Cold Springs or Hidden Valley still get light pollution from the Biggest Little City, but have clearer skies than the middle of town.
- Driving down the road on USA Parkway will likely also give you the dark skies to see the lunar eclipse without having to make a significant drive outside of town.
Carly Sauvageau with the Reno Gazette Journal contributed to this report.
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