Despite the energy in Trumpland, however, Nevada opinion pollsters and longtime observers of its politics tend to argue that the state, which went for the Democratic candidate in the past four elections, is still Biden’s to lose. They’re deeply suspicious of the early polls showing Trump considerably ahead and believe that Nevada, with its growing number of independent voters, has become increasingly difficult to poll accurately.
Union organizing efforts in the Las Vegas area—the Culinary Workers, aware of the notoriously anti-union positions that Trump has taken over the years, knocked on more than 1 million doors statewide in 2022 and are likely to launch a similarly impressive effort this year—may still give the Democrats an edge as the election nears. “We knocked on the doors of over half the Black and over half the Latinx and over one-third of Asian voters” in the state in 2022, says Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for Local 226. In 2024, fresh off its successful negotiations with the largest casino-owning companies—which resulted in a new contract that increases workers’ starting pay and benefits from $28 to $37 an hour over the next five years—the union plans to lead the largest field effort in the state, Khan says.
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Bethany Khan, of the Culinary Workers Union, isn’t worried. Over a lunch of tomato soup, steak, and french fries at a bistro training academy run by the union to bring new workers from the impoverished west and north sides of Las Vegas into the high-wage casino economy, she explains, “It’s an organizing challenge, and we’re one of the best. We’ll meet it head-on—workers talking to workers.”
Come this autumn, hundreds of those union workers, like 36-year-old Satoria Partridge, a Circa Resort & Casino porter and mother of three, will take a leave of absence to join the canvassing teams, hoping to once again tip the state into the blue column on Election Day. They will be talking about everything from reproductive rights to rent control, from how to treat immigrants with respect to how to ensure well-paying jobs for the next generation of Las Vegas workers. For Partridge, it’s a simple equation. “I’m a union baby,” she says. “The Biden administration is very pro-union.”
Partridge’s optimism may win out. After all, the Harry Reid machine—resurrected after its brief toppling by the DSA—has a storied history of snatching narrow victories from the jaws of defeat. But the Democrats would be fooling themselves if they didn’t think they had a brutal fight on their hands in the Silver State.