Kamala Harris appeals to Nevada voters in a state hit hard by COVID-19
California Senator and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris traveled to Nevada Tuesday for two campaign rallies to convince voters a week before Election Day that she and Joe Biden will help pull the state from a double-digit unemployment rate caused by COVID-19.
“There’s so much at stake in this election in terms of Nevadans and how they’ve suffered,” Harris said. “The state has been hit hard.”
The Silver State has recorded just shy of 97,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,756 deaths since the start of COVID-19. Since then, the virus has unraveled an economy heavily reliant on tourism, deeping economic inequity amid an unemployment rate of 12.6%, second only to Hawaii as the worst in the nation.
While California’s coronavirus positivity rate is hovering around 3%, Nevada’s rate has reached nearly 19%.
Speaking to supporters during two events, Harris said Nevada’s economic recovery hinges on a Biden-Harris White House and the Democrats’ plan to defeat COVID-19.
During an afternoon event at Robert Z. Hawkins Amphitheater in Reno, Harris told about 100 supporters wearing Biden-Harris masks and signs that the United States is in the midst of a health crisis that she argued President Donald Trump ignored and couldn’t be trusted to continue handling.
“They sat on that information,” Harris said, referencing reports that the president understood the seriousness of COVID-19 back in January, “and then had the gall, the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief whose first order of business should always be to protect the health and safety of the American people, sat on that information and called it a hoax?”
Had Trump issued warnings about the virus long before March, Harris argued, more Nevada businesses would be open and teachers and parents would be better prepared to handle their childrens’ education.
Though polls consistently show Biden with a comfortable lead of six to nine points over Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as they seek to snag Nevada’s six electoral votes, the state wasn’t always a surefire win for Democrats.
The state has trended blue since 2004, the last time a GOP presidential candidate won Nevada. In 2016, however, Nevada served more as battleground territory, with Hillary Clinton securing the state by only 2.4%.
Democrats now make up 37.5% of Nevada’s 1.7 million active voters, and Republicans 32.4%, making the state a favorable target for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Speaking to Nevada’s influence in the election, Harris said Nevada could help recoup all that was lost during the pandemic not just for its own residents, but for all Americans.
“Nevada is going to help determine the outcome of this election,” she said. “You are. Your vote is going to have an impact on people around the country.”
South Reno resident Michelle Bond, 50, a lifelong Democrat who works in the medical field, traveled with her 13-year-old son Robbie to attend Harris’ event. Bond, who plans to vote this week, said her son’s environmental activism and other social justice issues have inspired her to think “about their generation.”
“Before we would never go to rallies,” Bond said, “and I just feel it’s very important to create awareness for the importance to vote and use your voice, especially during these tumultuous times.”
She ended her day in Reno at a canvassing event for Unite Here, Nevada’s powerful labor union, at Idlewild Park along the Truckee River.
There she pledged to a sea of red-shirt wearing supporters that she and Biden would dramatically pivot from Trump’s immigration policies by reinstituting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and prohibiting the practice of separating children and families at the border.
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 4:37 PM.