LAS VEGAS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is working to make Nevada look like less of a political gamble in November’s election.

The Democratic presidential nominee visits the state on Saturday with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. It’s the final stop of a battleground blitz in which Democrats are showing new energy after President Joe Biden exited the race and Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket. That new enthusiasm has enabled them to boost turnout efforts in swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, which Harris visited Friday.

Magnolia Magat, a 59-year-old restaurant owner in Las Vegas who lives in the neighboring city of Henderson, said she’s now “more hopeful” about the election.

“I am very happy that not only is our candidate a woman, she is Black and she’s also Asian,” said Magat, who is Filipino American. “And it’s not because Harris is a woman that I want to endorse her. It’s because she’s highly capable of running the country.”

As part of the trip, Harris is hoping to build greater support among Latino voters. In 2020, Biden narrowly beat Republican Donald Trump by 2.4 percentage points in Nevada. Trump, the former president, is trying this time to create more support in a state that relies on the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industry by pledging to make workers’ tips tax-free.

But the union representing 60,000 workers in that industry, the Culinary Workers Union, announced Friday night its endorsement of Harris. About 54% of the union’s members are Latino, 55% women and 60% immigrants.

“The path to victory runs through Nevada,” the union said in a statement, “and the Culinary Union will deliver Nevada for President Kamala Harris and Vice President Tim Walz.”

AP VoteCast found in 2020 that 14% of Nevada voters were Hispanic, with Biden winning 54% of their votes. His margin with Hispanic voters was slightly better nationwide, a sign that Democrats cannot take this bloc of voters for granted.

Harris is hoping to drive a wedge with Republicans by focusing on issues such as access to abortion and repairs to the U.S. immigration system. Her message is that Trump killed a bipartisan deal this year to improve security on the southern border and address immigration issues, with Democrats saying he did so in hopes of improving his own political odds.

Because Harris’ portfolio in the Biden administration included the root causes of migration and due to some of her comments before the 2020 election, Republicans have sought to portray her as weak on the southern border and enabling illegal immigration.

At a Thursday news conference, Trump said of Harris, “As a border czar, she’s been the worst border czar in history, in the world history.”

The Republican has proposed mass deportations if he returns to the White House, but AP VoteCast found in 2020 that nearly 7 in 10 Nevada voters said that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be offered the chance to apply for legal status.

Harris and Walz over the past week have also visited the crucial midwestern “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Along with Nevada and Arizona, those five states represent 61 electoral votes that could be essential for reaching the 270 threshold required to win November’s election. Harris had also planned to visit North Carolina and Georgia this past week — between them another 32 electoral votes — but those stops were postponed due to Tropical Storm Debby.

In Nevada’s rural Douglas County near the California border, Gail Scott, 71, serves on the central committee of the local Democratic Party and said she didn’t initially agree with calls for Biden to leave the race. Trump won the county in 2016 and 2020, but trimming his margins there could lower his ability to compete in Nevada.

Scott said it’s impossible to miss the energy that Harris has created among younger voters who could help statewide.

“Young people are embracing Kamala Harris and the enthusiasm and the joy that she’s brought to the campaign,” she said.

Brian Shaw, a Republican from northern Nevada, said Harris’ arrival on the top of the ticket could make it harder for Trump to win because Biden was a “pitiful candidate” and there’s little time to expose the vice president’s “incompetence.” He said he attended Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance’s rally in Reno on July 30 and found him to be “likable, capable, polished as a politician, but not veneered.” He didn’t have much of an opinion of Walz.

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Boak reported from Washington. AP writer Scott Sonner contributed to this report from Reno, Nevada.

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.”

ELY, Nev. (KOLO) – A fire burning in eastern Nevada has burned more than 1,300 acres.

Eastern Nevada Interagency Fire says the Broom Canyon Fire doubled in size since earlier this week and now stands at 1,326 acres per their last update.

The fire is burning around nine miles east of Duckwater or 60 miles southwest of Ely. They say the fire currently remains well within the Currant Mountain Wilderness and the Planning Area Boundary and that there is no threat to human life or property.

It is burning in steep, rugged and inaccessible terrain, consuming white fir and pinyon-pine and juniper.

The fire was started by lightning and was first reported around 8:00 p.m. on July 29.

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