Washington, D.C. – Operación ¡Vamos! has been on the ground in Nevada since April talking to Hispanic voters. Catherine Cortez Masto and Democrats in Nevada are completely out of touch with Hispanic voters, who care about crime, inflation, job quality, the economy and education as their top issues. Hispanics do not care about the Democrats’ woke ideology. This is a major blow to the Democrats’ hopes of retaining the Senate majority this election.
WSJ: Will Hispanic Voters Turn Nevada Republican?
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It all depends on what happens in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, its suburbs and 72% of Nevada’s registered voters. Nevada—whose population is 30% Hispanic and 9% Asian—will also test how much the Republican Party’s working-class appeal crosses ethnic and racial lines.
“What direction do you think the country is going? Va bien o va mal?” Helder Toste of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s Operation ¡Vamos! poses that question to voters as he canvases door to door in East Las Vegas. Most say mal. A mother sitting in her garage says she’s “trying to find the best prices and not spend too much.” Another voter says the country is going to hell, to paraphrase a Spanish obscenity. A few are indifferent, but no one says bien.
The mood was similar two days earlier when the Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 service workers in Las Vegas and Reno, canvassed for Democrats in the same area. Fifty-four percent of the union’s members are Hispanic. “What we’re seeing from our members, and from Latino voters at the doors, is not different from the average working-class voter,” says Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer.
“Hispanic issues are American issues,” Mr. Toste says between houses, and he runs down the list: inflation, gasoline prices, jobs, crime, border security and failing schools. They’re Asian issues too. At the Republican National Committee’s newly opened Asian American Pacific Islander Community Center, voters gather to support April Becker, who is challenging Rep. Susie Lee, the state’s most vulnerable House incumbent.
“The deciding issue for voters is the economy, and the second is crime,” Ms. Becker tells me as her guests mingle. “We’ve got the second-highest gas prices in the county. . . . Everybody puts gas in their car, and they’re feeling it really hard.” The rankings change from day to day, but Nevada is near the top, at an average of $5.11 a gallon as of Friday, according to the American Automobile Association. Public transportation is scant even in Las Vegas, so Nevadans depend on their cars.
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Hispanic and Asian issues are working-class issues, and tourism-dependent Nevada is a working-class state. As of 2017, leisure and hospitality accounted for 26% of employment statewide and 30% in Clark County. Casinos are back to pre-pandemic levels of visitor spending, but they returned with fewer employees. “There’s 10,000-plus workers in the leisure and hospitality industry that have yet to return to work,” says Brian Gordon of Applied Analysis, an economic-research firm. Mr. Sisolak imposed stringent Covid lockdowns and didn’t lift a formal state of emergency until May 2022.
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The Las Vegas Police Protective Association endorsed Messrs. Lombardo and Laxalt. “Before 2020, we pretty much always endorsed Democrats,” says Officer John Abel, the union’s director of government affairs. “All of the people we previously endorsed . . . we feel like [they] turned their backs on us.”
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But the shift in Hispanic voters that started during Mr. Trump’s term appears to be continuing. A Suffolk University poll found Mr. Laxalt only 7 points behind Ms. Cortez Masto among Hispanics, with 42% to her 49%. That’s up from 30% in August, when Ms. Cortez Masto led by 18. (Mr. Laxalt noticeably drops his opponent’s Spanish maiden name when he refers to her.)
“A los Hispanos lo que nos interesa es la economía y la educación de nuestros hijos,” a woman tells me as we wait for Mr. Laxalt to speak at the RNC’s Hispanic Community Center. Translation: To Hispanics, what matters is the economy and the education of our children. If the Hispanic vote is up for grabs, Nevada will stay a bellwether.
Read the full article HERE.
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