LAS VEGAS A movement toward Republicans among working-class voters has caused Democrats to lose badly in Nevada’s presidential election for the first time in 20 years.
The result has forced them to face their failures. During interviews, prominent Democrats and their supporters pointed to issues with messaging, the late decision to nominate Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump’s exceptional capacity to take advantage of the agony of post-pandemic cost increases, which struck many voters as particularly painful.
Although the red wave ended with Trump, they are optimistic about their chances in Nevada, pointing out that it did not spread to other Republicans in the state. The odd result is assisting them in formulating their plan to turn Nevada blue once more in 2028.
According to Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., who claimed to have won a district that supported Trump, “I definitely think he is, I’m going to say, very gifted at targeting certain groups of society and telling them what they want to know.” And if he can fulfill those commitments, I believe the evidence will speak for itself.
“It will come back to haunt Republicans in two years and then again in four years if they don’t improve their lives,” Lee added.
Sen. Jacky Rosenwon was re-elected, Democrats win all three of the House districts in the Las Vegas area, and the Democratic presidential contender lost. Additionally, Democrats maintained their position in the state legislature, narrowly missing supermajorities.
None of the aforementioned ballot options had an effect on ticket splitting or partial nonvoting in Nevada.
Despite receiving around 4,000 more votes than Rosen, Harris lost Nevada. The crucial distinction? For Rosen’s opponent, Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown, many Trump supporters declined to check the box. Trump received over 75,000 more votes than Brown did.
A working-class message
Trump is a phenomena. He is a brand. “And he’s been at it for 30 years with ‘The Apprentice,’ appearing on WWF, et cetera,” stated Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of the powerful Culinary Union in Las Vegas. Usually, there is damage when the top of the ticket is lost. It didn’t occur.
Nevada was the epicenter of the two demographics that enabled Trump to win all seven battleground states: its sizable Latino population and its voters’ lack of college degrees.
In 2020, Trump lost Latinos by 26 percentage points, but this year, he won them by 2 points, according to Nevada exit polls from NBC News. Trump increased his edge among Nevada voters without college degrees from two points in 2020 to ten points this year.
Democrats were harmed by Trump’s messaging that allowed him to appeal to working-class voters by running against elitism, according to Pappageorge, whose union represents the blue-collar workers who work in Sin City’s opulent hotels and casinos.
According to him, Democrats need to return to the fundamentals of standing up for working-class causes and ideals, which include working-class women and men as well as Black and Latino people. Voters from the working class don’t follow politics. They don’t watch Fox, CNN, or anything else. “They are concerned with providing for their families,” he stated.
NBC News exit surveys showed that Nevada Latinos voted for Rosen by 7 points, despite Trump’s 2 point advantage.
Republican hopes for the future
Republicans claim that Nevada’s vote for Trump is the first step in a trend that the GOP can capitalize on.
“This is a huge deal. Since 2004, Republicans have been successful at the state level, but they have failed to win the presidency, according to Jeremy Hughes, a GOP strategist who has worked on races in Nevada. “When you look at 2020, 2022 and 2024, you see a trend that would be foolish for anyone to ignore.”
Hughes responded, “It’s still a work in progress,” when asked why the GOP has not succeeded in converting down the ballot. It’s challenging to defeat incumbents. However, if we keep doing what we’re doing in 2026 and beyond, success will build on success.”
By re-electing GOP Governor Joe Lombardo in 2026, he said, Republicans can begin to disprove Democrats.
Down the ballot, other Republicans said that resources were an issue.
Sadly, Brown got outspent. He closed the gap, but the cavalry probably arrived about a week too late, said a national Republican strategist working on Senate races, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about his party.
Although the House GOP machine did not spend any money in Nevada this year, the strategist said Republicans should have hope for the state’s future. The story is told by the trends in voter registration.
The Democrats’ road map
Democrats need to control the rising number of unaligned voters, according to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., who overcame obstacles to win in 2022.
In Nevada, we now have more independents or nonpartisans than ever before—more than one-third of them. Therefore, we must identify them, she stated. At the end of the day, you must address the subjects that those voters care about in your messaging. That’s why Jacky prevailed.
Races in Nevada are always close and competitive. That will remain unchanged. We ve always had close presidential races, Cortez Masto said. But at the end of the day, do I have confidence in the Democratic ground game and the infrastructure and the knocking on the doors and talking to our voters? That is something I am confident in. And that is part of why we are so successful.
Rosen said she won because she delivered results for tourism, wildfire mitigation, infrastructure, a new Veterans Affairs hospital in Reno and solar, wind and geothermal jobs.
Harris, she said, was hamstrung by bad luck.
There s a lot of larger questions, of course. I ll say this as a woman: Are people ready for a woman president? Rosen said. This was a unique election cycle because of the way that President Biden stepped back 100 days before the election.
Josh Marcus-Blank, a Democratic operative who worked for Cortez Masto in 2022 and on Harris 2024 campaign, said his party retains the road map to win in Nevada with a diverse coalition of voters and an agenda focused on economics, housing and the cost of living.
At the same time, it s a state where voters have consistently stood up for reproductive freedom, and, whether it s on the ballot or not,abortion rightswill continue to be a big piece of Democratic campaigns going forward, he said.
Pappageorge praised Harris for running a strong campaign against long odds. He said that while the Biden-Harris policy record on blue-collar workers is strong, many aren t perceiving it.
Joe Biden was the most pro-union, pro-worker candidate and president that we ve ever had in our lifetimes, he said. But overall, the Democratic Party missed the mark, and they re going to have to re-evaluate that commitment to working-class voters.
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