Obama’s Las Vegas Rally Last-Ditch Pitch to Keep Nevada Blue

Former President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event in College Park, Ga., on Oct. 28, 2022, the first of five campaign events on behalf of embattled Democrats in key states, including in Las Vegas on Nov. 1. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

If there’s one countrywide confluence of midterm election outcomes that could determine which party controls Congress in 2023, it’s in Las Vegas.

Three of Nevada’s four House seats and one of the state’s Senate seats, all now occupied by Democrat incumbents seeking reelection, are up for grabs in the Nov. 8 midterm elections against polished Republican challengers who sense a red wave coming in a state with a history of red and blue swing elections.

All four races—as well as Clark County Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo’s contest with incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat—are tossups with election forecasters and polls rarely giving any candidate an edge beyond the margin of error.

And Las Vegas, Nevada’s largest city in the state’s largest county—Clark County, where nearly 75 percent of the state’s residents live—is the epicenter of it all.

Winning will be all about turnout—and the stars of each party are turning out to appeal to Nevadans.

Former President Donald Trump was in Nevada in early October. His prospective 2024 Republican primary rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, campaigned—and fundraised—in the state before its June primary and in August on behalf of fellow former U.S. Navy JAG officer and Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt.

Former U.N. Ambassador and North Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who recently left the Democratic Party and is now an independent, have both been in Nevada within the past week, stumping for Laxalt and other Republican candidates.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has campaigned in Las Vegas on behalf of Democrats, primarily for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), described by election forecasters as “the most vulnerable” of the incumbent senators seeking reelection. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is also set to stump for Democratic candidates in the campaign’s waning days. Celebrities, such as actor Martin Sheen, have chimed in on behalf of Democrats.

On Nov. 1, the Democrats’ biggest booster of them all comes to Las Vegas when former President Barack Obama stages a campaign rally on behalf of Cortez Masto, the three Democrat congressional incumbents, and Sisolak.

Obama will be joined at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas during the four-hour rally by recording artist and activist John Legend and labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huertas.

Obama’s Las Vegas appearance is his fourth stop on a five-state tour that began in Georgia on Oct. 29, swept through the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan last weekend, and will end in Pennsylvania on Nov. 5.

Described by the Nevada Democratic Party as a “rally to energize voters,” there’s a pervading sense in tight election battles nationwide that if winning comes down to turnout and turnout comes down to enthusiasm, Republican voters appear more motivated to get to the midterm polls.

A number of recent surveys, including an Oct. 10 to Oct. 16 Pew Research nationwide poll of 5,098 adults, including 3,993 registered voters, gives Republicans a perceived “motivation” advantage.

The Pew Research poll, published on Oct. 20, found that more than 72 percent of overall respondents who identified as registered voters said they’re “extremely/very motivated to vote,” with 80 percent of those who identified as Republicans set to do so and 79 percent of those who identified as Democrats eager to cast ballots.

That perceived slim motivational advantage takes on a different—and alarming, for Democrats—meaning when sifting through demographics.

A Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 POLITICO/Morning Consult poll of more than 2,000 registered voters across the country, published on Oct. 5, found that just 25 percent of black registered voters describe themselves as “extremely enthusiastic” about voting, compared with about 37 percent of white voters and 35 percent of Hispanic voters.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), shown here at a Las Vegas middle school campaigning for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in February 2020, is now under fire from voters and his own wife, with Republican challenger Sam Peters on Oct. 31 calling for his resignation after she cited a domestic violence incident. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

GOP Candidates: Obama ‘Can’t Hide’ Biden, Horsford’s Issues

Cortez Masto’s campaign said in a statement touting Obama’s appearance that Republicans across Nevada, as well as 12 members of Laxalt’s own family, have endorsed the Democratic incumbent, while Laxalt has needed, from the start of his primary campaign, to import out-of-state Republicans to rally support.

Laxalt, on a two-week bus tour of the state that ends on Nov. 4 in Las Vegas, fired back in a Nov. 1 Twitter post that Cortez Masto “can try hiding from Bernie, Kamala, and Biden all she wants, but Nevadans won’t forget her lockstep support of them.”

“Bringing Obama to Nevada to campaign with her today won’t save her in this race,” he wrote.

Obama’s visit is also meant to benefit incumbents Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in the 1st Congressional District 1 (CD 1)—the formerly deep blue inner Las Vegas district that hasn’t elected a Republican in 40 years—Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) in the 2nd Congressional District, and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) in the 4th Congressional District.

With the 1st Congressional District’s new boundaries stretching east and south of Las Vegas and its reconfigured demographics doubling the district’s number of registered Republicans to nearly 110,000, what had been a 2-to-1 Democratic voter bulge has been scaled back to single-percentage points.

Republican Mark Robertson, a retired U.S. Army colonel, certified financial planner, and UNLV adjunct professor of finance, is challenging Titus, a six-term congresswoman in the reconfigured 1st Congressional District.

Although Titus has the backing of the powerful Culinary Union Local 226, Robertson told The Epoch Times that Obama won’t help her with voters outside her now-diluted base.

“I would ask Barack Obama to take some time and listen to what the people of Southern Nevada living under progressive rule have to say about their policies,” he said. “We’re not Martha’s Vineyard or Los Angeles. Working families in Nevada are struggling with $5 gas and 16-percent inflation brought on by the politicians he is campaigning for.”

Robertson had a suggestion for the former president when he campaigns on Nov. 5 in Pennsylvania with the current president.

“Perhaps Mr. Obama can relay what these people tell him to Joe Biden, who refuses to come to our state to see the damage his disastrous administration has wrought,” he said.

“Ultimately, I think his efforts are in vain because the people of Nevada have had enough of progressive rule. T-minus one week until we flip this district along with the House of Representatives.”

Republican Sam Peters, a retired U.S. Air Force major and owner of a Las Vegas insurance firm, is challenging two-term incumbent Horsford in the 4th Congressional District.

“[It’s] curious how far away my opponent is staying from Joe Biden,” Peters told The Epoch Times.

Obama isn’t going to help Horsford no matter what because Horsford is doing a good job of undermining himself, Peters said.

Already facing a difficult reelection campaign, when Horsford announced that he was running again, he was upbraided by his wife, Sonya Douglass, for wanting to return to Washington, where, he has admitted, he had been engaged in an affair with a former intern of late Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid since 2009.

As a result, despite Democrats holding a 10.5 percent advantage in registered 4th Congressional District voters, Cook Political Report rates his prospects for a third term as a toss-up against Peters.

In a series of Oct. 30 Twitter posts, Douglass cited a domestic violence incident and wrote, “I was just minding my business until Steven and his attorney demanded I sign an NDA (nondisclosure agreement) that would ban me from speaking about my 22-year marriage, his 10-year affair, and our divorce FOREVER. It includes $10,000 fines for each remark or social post. Even to a therapist! Y’all!”

Peters, during an Oct. 31 press conference, said he has resisted making Horsford’s affair and his wife’s domestic violence claim a campaign issue because there were “more important things for Nevada” voters to think about.

But with the latest revelations, it’s no longer just a political matter, he said.

“Steven Horsford has been engaged in bullying, intimidation, and possibly violence against his own family. Today, I am calling on him to resign from office immediately,” Peters said. “The media must do their job and give this story the coverage it warrants.”

Neither Horsford nor his campaign have commented, but he did take to Twitter hours before Obama was set to take the stage in Las Vegas.

“Thank you @BarackObama for visiting the 4th District tonight,“ he wrote. ”We can’t wait to show you our strength and perseverance as a community! Let’s turn out the vote and win this election, not only for Nevada but for the Nation!”