Vice President Kamala Harris has never met Maria Rodriguez and probably never will. But the Democratic presidential nominee should be worried about Rodriguez and the voters who like her.
The single mother of three from Henderson, Nevada, is a former Democratic voter who worries about the economy (read: the price of just about everything) and says she plans to vote for former President Trump.
Rodriguez voted for Joe Biden four years ago, hoping for better times ahead. But whatever government statisticians may say about the economy, the 36-year-old is finding it harder to pay the bills these days, even though she works two or three jobs as a nurse and home health care worker.
“Going to the grocery store is really hard now,” Rodriguez said as she pushed a nearly empty cart down an aisle at a Dollar Tree discount store last week. “Sometimes before, you’d go in with $100 and walk out with a full cart. It was pretty good. Now, with $100, you can buy maybe 10 things. It’s living paycheck to paycheck.”
“I was potentially a Democrat,” he said. “But I have changed my mindset. [because] “This country is going downhill.”
Views like Rodriguez’s go a long way toward explaining why Nevada, which Democrats have won in the past four presidential contests, remains in contention in the 2024 election. Harris holds a narrow 0.6% lead in recent polls, according to an aggregate from Real Clear Politics. That’s a notable improvement for Democrats, given that Trump was leading by high single digits in polls before President Biden dropped out of the race in July.
The Silver State is one of seven states believed to hold the key to victory in 2024. And it typically chooses the candidate the rest of the United States favors. In the 28 presidential elections held since 1912, The winner of Nevada has won the presidency every time but two. The exceptions were in 1976, when Nevada elected Republican Gerald Ford over Democrat Jimmy Carter, and in 2016, when Nevada and its six electoral votes went to Hillary Clinton instead of Trump.
Trump will rely heavily on Nevadans' discontent with the economy to secure a victory in a state that most experts expect to be closely contested leading up to the Nov. 5 election.
The former president is scheduled to hold a rally Friday night in Las Vegas. Advertisement on Las Vegas TV stations which features another former Republican president, Ronald Reagan.
“I think when you make that decision, you might want to ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan says in a video of his final 1980 debate against President Carter. “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than you were four years ago?”
That question could come in handy for Trump this year, as national and state polls continue to show the economy remains the top issue for voters. The party in power often pays the price for those feelings. In an Emerson College poll conducted in August, 37% of likely Nevada voters surveyed named the economy as the top issue, with the related issue of housing affordability coming in second, mentioned by 15% of respondents.
Nevada's elasticity in presidential politics is due in part to the large proportion of voters… 34% — who do not identify with any of the main parties.
“That large block of independent voters makes the state unpredictable,” said Thom Reilly, a former public official in Nevada’s Clark County and now an academic. “In January, they were supporting Trump by 10 percent, and now the polls are all over the map and they could be siding with Harris. I think those voters make it more volatile.”
What is frustrating for staunch Democrats is the fact that not all voters have been moved by the improving economic indicators, as the purchasing power of “real wages” has grown nationally over the past year.
The state’s unemployment rate, at 5.5% in August, is higher than the national average of 3.7%, but the Las Vegas metropolitan region’s 4% jobless rate nearly matches that of the United States as a whole. Those numbers pale in comparison to the 31% unemployment rate that devastated the state during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Annual inflation peaked in 2022 at around 9% and had decreased to 2.6% for the American West (including Nevada) for this summer, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Prices even fell in some categories, including dairy products, fruits and vegetables.
And while gasoline in Nevada is costing an average of $3.98 a gallon this month, above the national average of $3.27, that's a substantial drop from $4.62 a year ago, according to AAA.
The boom-bust cycles Nevadans know all too well — with particularly deep holes during the Great Recession and early in the pandemic — have been particularly painful in the housing market.
Apartment rents rose sharply in 2022: The typical rental rate of $1,805 in the Las Vegas metro area marked an increase of nearly a third from just two years earlier. Only three other metro areas saw bigger jumps. The median rent today sits at $2,070, so increases have slowed but still leave some people struggling to pay rent.
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A front desk worker at a senior center in the working-class northwest section of Las Vegas said her clients have been forced to rely on relatives, while others have been evicted and forced into their cars — or onto the streets.
“The rent has gone up since Biden is in office. It went up when Trump was in office,” said the worker, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Karen. “We don’t know who is to blame.”
He said he didn't know much about Harris, but he liked what he saw at the Democratic National Convention.
“He has a lot of new ideas, things that could help,” including proposals to expand the child care tax credit, Karen said.
In interviews with 17 people in Henderson and Las Vegas last week, six said they intended to vote for Harris and five for Trump, while another six were unsure if they would vote at all. Half of those uncommitted said they tend to favor the former president; the other half, the current vice president.
Donald Trump was leading in state polls at this Las Vegas rally in June, before President Biden resigned. An ad for him on Las Vegas TV stations shows Ronald Reagan telling voters in 1980 to ask themselves if they were better off than they were four years ago.
(John Locher/Associated Press)
Trump's supporters tended to highlight his past as a businessman and focus on the bottom line. Prices for most things were lower when the Republican was in the White House, so it's time to bring him back, they said.
Some also echoed Trump's frequent complaint that immigrants crossing the border illegally from Mexico are harming the United States (border crossings have declined in recent months).
Most of Harris's supporters said they were confident she would make the changes she promised, such as imposing penalties on retailers and others who engage in price gouging. Those who support the Democrat said they were fed up with the demonization of immigrants.
Rodriguez, a mother of three, said her parents arrived from Mexico legally and complained about those who arrive without authorization and then receive government benefits.
“There are people who come to this country and basically everything is handed to them,” said Rodriguez, who grew up in Orange County. “To me, that’s not fair.”
A hallway away at the Henderson Dollar Tree, Monica Silva had a different opinion. She said Trump is “always talking about the Mexican issue.”
And he added: “He always criticizes them and blames them. And that is not true. That is not the problem in our country.”
Silva, 77, who emigrated more than half a century ago from Chile, sees Harris as someone who will curb price gouging.
“I think she’s powerful and she’s experienced as a lawyer, you know?” Silva said. “I think she can get things done, more than most people can.”
Shara Rule, who works for an electric scooter company, doesn't believe Harris or the Biden White House are to blame for the price hikes, and believes prices will come down.
“Trump is just greedy. He’s benefiting himself,” said Rule, 61. “She’s smart and has a good head on her shoulders. I think she’s going to take us in the right direction, economically.”
Susan Kendall, a medical records director at a nursing facility, said Trump did more while Democrats did most of the talking.
She fondly recalled the $1,200 “economic impact payment” in COVID-19 relief she received when Trump was still in office.
“That made a huge difference for people, and Biden didn’t even try to do any of that,” said Kendall, 56. (In fact, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan shortly after taking office, sending $1,400 per person payments to middle-class families.)
“I don’t know exactly what Trump did, but whatever he did worked,” Kendall said. “I feel like Trump is focused on the domestic side of the country and helping people here, not helping people outside.”
The ad featuring Reagan really struck a chord with him. “I watched it and thought about what things were like four years ago,” he said. “I think that will make it easier to make a decision.”
Mandy, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom, said prices have gone up so much that she can no longer buy all the snacks and extras she would like at the grocery store.
“I can't afford that right now,” he said.
“I think the country should be run like a business,” said Mandy, a two-time Trump voter who declined to give her last name. “Not as much as Biden is running it now. He’s not like a businessman. He’s a politician.”
As she shops for yarn to knit hats for friends and family, Kathleen Clark says she believes both sides of the political spectrum are wrong to think any president can turn economic conditions around in the short term.
Clark, 66, a day trader, said the economy is controlled by long-term macro and microeconomic forces. She also doesn’t believe in campaign promises, such as Trump and Harris’s to eliminate tip taxes (“They can’t do it,” she said, “until they figure out how to replace that money”).
Clark also questioned those who say how much they are suffering. She knows from her days in retail that children who began returning to school in recent weeks were wearing some pretty expensive clothing.
“These kids go out on the court with tennis shoes and $600 backpacks. They have $1,000 on their backs,” he said, laughing. “Nothing happens to them.”
Clark, one of those ubiquitous Nevada independents, said her vote will be guided by one factor that is beyond dispute.
“I’m voting for Harris. Why? Strictly because she’s a woman,” he said. “I don’t believe in Biden. I don’t believe in Trump. I don’t believe in anything else. But it was about time I voted for her.” [for a female president]. There is nothing else.”
