RENO, Nev. – President Joe Biden on Sunday ticked through a list of reasons he says a second Donald Trump presidency would be a “nightmare” for the country as he urged Nevada Democrats to vote for him in the state’s presidential primary this week and for his party at large in November.
Biden opened a campaign swing with a fundraiser where he focused on Trump’s ample history of provocative statements — his description of Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages,” his musing about a former top military officer deserving execution, his branding of fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” his wish to be a Day One “dictator,” his vow to supporters that “I am your retribution,” and more.
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Then it was on to a community center in a predominantly Black section of Las Vegas, where he told his crowd of several hundred that “you’re the reason we’ll make Donald Trump a loser again."
Biden said the stakes were huge when he took on Trump in 2020 — “what made America America, I thought, was at risk’ — and they are even larger now as a likely rematch looms.
He told donors at the private home in Henderson, Nevada, that if they came to Washington, he’d show them the White House dining room table where Trump, according to ex-aides, sat transfixed for hours in front of the TV as the rioters he’d fired up with his rhetoric stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We have to keep the White House,” he said., “We must keep the Senate” and win back the House.
Accomplish that, he said, and “we can say we saved American democracy.”
He was equally blunt in talking up his record at his subsequent rally where he implored voters to “imagine the nightmare of Donald Trump.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded in kind, saying Biden “has been a nightmare for this country in just three short years in the White House, and no amount of gaslighting will make Americans forget about all the misery and destruction he has brought.”
In Tuesday’s Nevada Democratic presidential primary, Biden faces only token opposition from author Marianne Williamson and a few relatively unknown challengers. He won Nevada in November 2020 by fewer than 3 percentage points. But he came to Nevada to rouse voters for the fall campaign as well.
The state known largely for its casino and hospitality industries is synonymous with split-ticket, hard-to-predict results. It has a transient, working-class population and large Latino, Filipino and Chinese American and Black communities . Nevada has a stark rural-urban divide, with more than 88% of active registered voters — and much of its political power — in the two most populous counties, which include the Las Vegas and Reno metro areas.
In 2022, Democrats successfully defended their Senate seat and lost the governor’s office. The six constitutional officers elected statewide are split evenly among Democrats and Republicans.
The narrow victory of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto helped Democrats party keep control of the Senate for the remainder of Biden’s current term.
Working in Biden's favor this year is the vast Democratic operation built by the late Sen. Harry Reid. The “Reid Machine” has for years trained operatives and retained organizers and is partially why, despite Nevada’s status as a purple state, Democrats have won every presidential election here since 2008.
But early signs show Biden could have more ground to make up than in past races. Voters are largely dissatisfied with the likely Biden-Trump rematch. A New York Times/Siena poll from November put Biden’s approval rating at 36% in Nevada.
“I know from my reelection, the issues that matter to Nevadans are still those kitchen table issues,” Cortez Masto said in an interview.
Biden has built his reelection campaign around the theme that Trump presents a dire threat to U.S. democracy and its founding values. The president also has championed the defense of abortion rights, recently holding his first big campaign rally, in Virginia, where the issue energized Democrats who won control of the state’s House of Delegates.
Biden also promotes his handling of the economy, arguing that his policies have created millions of jobs, combated climate change and improved American competitiveness overseas. But polls suggest many voters aren’t giving his administration credit.
The Democratic National Committee recently announced a six-figure ad buy in Nevada and South Carolina, where Biden won the leadoff primary Saturday. The ads are meant to boost enthusiasm among Black, Asian American and Latino voters statewide, including radio, television and digital ads in Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog, and a billboard in Las Vegas’ Chinatown.
As early voting began a week ago in Nevada, Trump asserted without evidence during a campaign rally in Las Vegas that he was the victim of the Biden administration's weaponizing law enforcement against him. Trump has been indicted four times and faces 91 felonies.
Dan Lee, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that for Biden, "the map says he has to hold on to Nevada.”
The Republican presidential primary is also Tuesday but the state GOP is holding caucuses on Thursday to allocate delegates. Trump is competing in the caucuses; rival Nikki Haley opted to stay on the nonbinding primary ballot.
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Stern reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
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Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Stern on X: @gabestern326