Just two days after Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a town hall geared towards Latino voters, former President Donald Trump had his own roundtable discussion in North Las Vegas on Saturday, arguing Latinos were better off under his leadership and that those running the country now are “very stupid and probably evil.”
In roughly 15 minutes of remarks as he was flanked by some small business owners, Trump described “a nation in decline,” zeroing in on fears about the rising cost of living, unauthorized immigration and drug trafficking in front of an audience that organizers estimated to be about 500 attendees. Supporters who spoke during the roundtable included Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown, Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue, and businessman and Assembly candidate Rafael Arroyo, all of whom lauded Trump’s economic platform.
Several participants pointed to the need for community members to hold multiple jobs to survive as a reason to vote Republican.
Trump’s latest visit to Vegas comes on the heels of a Friday rally in Reno. The Saturday event was hosted by Building America’s Future, a conservative political action committee started in 2022 that has attacked the Biden administration platform on illegal immigration, and has received millions of dollars from Tesla founder Elon Musk.
“I think this is going to be the biggest and most important election in the history of the United States,” Trump said. “The Hispanic people have been tremendous.”
In the home stretch of the presidential race that’s neck and neck, both Harris and Trump have ramped up efforts to reach Nevada’s Latino voters — who could prove key to winning the swing state and its six electoral votes.
About 20 percent of the state’s registered voters are Latino, and nearly half of them don’t belong to either major party, according to the NALEO Education Fund, a Latino political group. Although Harris is outperforming Trump among Latinos (51 percent to 39 percent), according to a September Televisa/Univision poll, Trump appears poised to improve his margins with the group, especially with Spanish speakers.
Trump boasted that he was getting “numbers of Hispanic Americans that nobody ever thought possible.”
“It’s an incredible group of people. It’s an honor to have you on my side,” he said.
Many of the community members who spoke at the event were first-generation immigrants and identified as former Democrats, but said that their economic prospects suffered under the Biden Administration and they came to support Trump as a result.
Insurance agent Linda Fornos, who spoke at the roundtable, said that she voted for Biden in 2020, but recently threw her support behind Donald Trump. Fornos, who immigrated from Nicaragua more than a decade ago, lamented the economic situation, saying her son wanted to be part of the roundtable but couldn’t afford to miss work.
“I ask to everyone, what [Democrats] have done to us? Nothing. They have done nothing,” she said.
Fact checkers say Latinos fared similarly under Biden and Trump, with one expert calling it “a tie.” They fared better under Biden on inflation-adjusted wages, homeownership and health insurance coverage; they fared better under Trump on the poverty rate and inflation-adjusted household income.
Voters say they trust Trump more than Harris on border issues; the former president has pledged to conduct a mass deportation campaign if elected. Throughout his speech, he repeatedly derided the record-breaking number of unauthorized border crossings during the Biden administration, calling the situation at the border “the worst ever in the history of the world” and saying illegal immigration is an economic threat to Latinos whose prosperity grew during his term.
It’s “being taken away from you by them, because of the border, because people are going to come in, they’re going to take your job,” Trump said.
Economists push back on this claim, saying the roles immigrant workers are taking are generally ones that native-born U.S. citizens are unwilling to take, such as farm work and food processing jobs.
Trump also repeatedly attempted to woo union members during his speech, touting his proposal to end taxes on tips. He cited poll results that indicated that 60 percent of Teamsters in Nevada supported him, although the national chapter declined to endorse a candidate, and Nevada’s chapter recently endorsed Harris.
Brian Ursua, a Teamsters Local 631 member, came out in favor of Trump during the roundtable, highlighting the former president’s stance against taxing tips, saying it would help the “Teamsters out tremendously.” The majority of those he works with want Trump back in office, Ursua said.
“I remember when you were in office the economy was booming,” Ursa told Trump. “We were able to live the American Dream.”
Ursua — a Christian — also espoused Trump’s values, asserted that Americans “respected” authority during his term and that the southern border and local communities were safer then. The narrow miss during an attempted assassination this summer was an act of divine intervention, he contended.
Brown and Arroyo also spoke briefly at the event. Brown, who is trailing his opponent Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), attacked the Democratic senator over the growth in her wealth during the Biden administration.
He called on the women in the audience to get out to vote for him, saying that they were key to a potential win over Rosen.
As the event ended, Trump made a similar pitch to the audience.
“Get out to vote,” he said.
