Californians head to Nevada to sway abortion policy. Will it work? | Opinion
On a recent Sunday at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m., I was on a coach bus headed to Reno with 150 Sacramento Democrats to help swing Nevada to the Democrats in the Nov. 5 election.
Leading the charge was Maggy Krell, an elite prosecutor who appears destined to be elected to the Assembly; that is to say, Krell’s odds of winning the 6th Assembly seat seem as sure as Vice President Kamala Harris’ odds of winning California’s 54 electoral votes next week.
So instead of campaigning against Republican opponent Nikki Ellis, Krell opted to use nearly $60,000 in campaign donations to gather supporters for a trip to Reno in aid of Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, a progressive coalition created to enshrine the right to abortion in Nevada’s constitution (much like California’s Prop. 1, passed in 2022).
This year’s “Question 6” in Nevada is a proposed constitutional amendment that would protect the right to an abortion until “fetal viability” (around 23 or 24 weeks) or when necessary to protect the health of the mother.
Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen led a karaoke sesh on the bus for a solid hour as we wound our way over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She was joined on the microphone by Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, State Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, state senate candidate Christopher Cabaldon, SMUD Director Rosanna Herber and even Krell herself. The esteemed group sang crowd-pleasers at the top of their lungs, like ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. (Which is the only correct way to sing “Dancing Queen” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” in my opinion.)
But alongside the early-morning enthusiasm fueled mainly by coffee and hope, I felt a sense of dread and desperation, too — a desperation I share. Many others that day told me they felt like they didn’t do enough in 2016 to stop Donald Trump from being elected to the presidency.
“We didn’t want to wake up on Nov. 6 feeling like, ‘Shoot, if we’d just done something.’ So here we are, and it feels like the right thing to do,” Krell supporter Robin Imagire told me while we canvassed around the suburbs surrounding Reno High School.
I didn’t understand why so many Californians felt they needed to drive to another state to affect outsider politics. But then again, I’ve never lived in “the swingiest county in the swingiest state,” as Lindsey Harmon, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, told Krell’s gathered supporters before canvassing started.
“We aren’t knocking on doors about an issue that’s specifically (about) Nevada,” Imagire said, “(Reproductive rights are) a nationwide issue, it doesn’t matter where you come from because people get abortions across state lines.”
Shipping out to Reno
“It’s not that I think that Nevadans are particularly excited about busloads of people from outside (their state),” Krell said. “When you’re at someone’s front door and you’re connecting with a stranger about something that really matters to you, you have a power and an opportunity to convince someone to vote who might otherwise stay home.”
Krell, a former lawyer for Planned Parenthood, was instrumental in helping shut down Backpage, an online site that allowed illegal sex work activities like pimping and sex trafficking. Krell worked on that project under the auspices of then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the site was shut down in 2018.
Even though Krell’s group of canvassers weren’t legally allowed to discuss Harris that day, it was a smart play by Democrats in Nevada and Arizona to put abortion rights on the ballot this November — Question 6 and Prop. 139, respectively — to turn out liberal voters.
“If Harris loses Pennsylvania, she must win Nevada to have an alternate path to victory,” said state elections expert Paul Mitchell. “The only thing that is going to help at this point is boots on the ground. And with abortion ballot measures in both those states, they can work to turn out voters who otherwise may stay at home.”
“(Harris) could lose if her lower-turnout supporters don’t get off the couch and vote.”
‘A misjudgment from the start’
Predictably, not all of the Nevadans that day were happy to see Californians on their porch.
At one house in Reno, Krell supporter America Ramirez said she met a woman who slammed the door in her face and told her to “send Nevadans and take care of your own state.” Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for much of her life, said the woman had misjudged their intent “from the start.”
“I’m just as much an American as she is. I pay my taxes, but I don’t have access to voting or other rights,” she said. “We’re giving up our day and putting a lot of effort into it.”
Ironically, the Las Vegas Review-Journal recently reported that nearly 158,000 California expats have relocated to Nevada since 2020, accounting for 43% of all new residents there in the past four years, according to data from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. They could play a large role in handing the state’s six crucial electoral votes to Trump.
Will fleeing conservatives from too-blue California tip the Silver State toward Trump? Or will Harris’ double whammy of a strong closing message and a campaign focused on reproductive rights constitute a one-two-punch at the polls?
Who knows.
What we do know is that knocking on doors is the single most effective way to flip people’s votes, according to election experts like Mitchell. Harris supporters are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do just that in swing states in these final days, while Republican supporters seem to be spending much of their time, energy and money harassing voters as “poll watchers.”
I’d rather live in a world where overconfident Californians bus to Nevada than one where ballot boxes are routinely lit on fire.
National election is still a coin toss
Like life, elections are always clearer in hindsight than foresight. What campaigns “should” have spent their money on is nearly impossible to predict, though people like Mitchell, who are skilled at such prognostications, make a good living at it for a reason.
Krell will almost certainly win an Assembly seat. Harris, her former boss, is less assured of her seat. Nevadans will also almost certainly pass Question 6, and Prop. 139 is polling well in Arizona. Will encouraging voters in those states turn out the vote for Harris? Will Harris win Nevada? Does she have a path to the presidency if she loses Nevada?
These are tough questions — and I certainly don’t know. But crazier things have happened, like me singing the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” on a touring bus at 9 a.m. with half of the Sacramento region’s elected officials. Who’d have thought?
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 2:00 PM.
