In his latest visit to the Silver State, former President Donald Trump promised Nevadans relief on their energy bills, described an aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration and called Nov. 5 the “most important day in the history of our country.”
“I’m putting everything on the line to fight for you, and I am also only asking you for one thing: Vote. Get out and vote,” Trump said in his opening remarks at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno Friday evening, emphasizing that mail voting is already underway in Nevada and it’s important to vote Republican at every level “to turn around our country so fast.”
The message comes with a week until early voting begins and less than a month until Election Day in the Silver State, which is squarely among the states whose electoral votes could determine the winner of the presidential race.
In the nearly 90-minute wide-ranging speech to a packed crowd in the casino’s main ballroom, Trump also lobbed numerous criticisms against Vice President Kamala Harris and hammered home messaging on the economy, promising to cut energy prices in half and reiterating promises to not tax overtime pay and implement a “no tax on tips” policy — an idea he first floated at a Las Vegas rally in mid-June, saying a waiter at his property on the Strip gave him the idea.
Trump also addressed back-to-back hurricanes that have hit the East Coast in recent weeks, which have led to widespread environmental destruction and questions about which presidential candidate would best address natural disasters.
“I want to send our love to all of the people back east who are recovering from two really devastating hurricanes,” Trump said. “Our hearts are with those who lost a loved one, and we are with you all of the way.”
He added that it’s important to get “better help from a thing called the federal government” and criticized Harris for the response to the disaster.
In the wake of the storms, the Biden administration has focused on combating misinformation, warning that the former president’s rhetoric could lead to unfounded fears that the government is not working to address the crisis.
Here are The Nevada Independent’s four main takeaways from Friday’s rally.
The presidential race is a toss-up
The event marked Trump’s first appearance in Reno since last December as he barnstorms across the country in the final month of the presidential race. Most recently, Trump held a rally in Las Vegas last month and will return to Southern Nevada on Saturday for a roundtable with Hispanic voters alongside Sam Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate.
His visit comes after Harris held a town hall in Las Vegas on Thursday, and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), was in Reno on Monday. Democratic former President Barack Obama is scheduled to rally for Harris in Las Vegas the day early voting begins.
Polls show a dead heat between Trump and Harris in the Silver State, though he received his best polling results Friday after a Wall Street Journal poll found him besting Harris by 6 percentage points here. Almost all other recent nonpartisan polls have found both candidates separated by a couple of percentage points, well within the margin of error.
At the beginning and end of his speech, Trump underscored the stakes of the upcoming election, urging attendees to cast a ballot.
“With your vote in this election, we will quickly defeat inflation, and we will make America affordable again,” he said, focusing parts of his speech on seniors, gun owners and evangelicals, and warning about “disastrous radical Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen,” who is known as a moderate in the closely divided Senate.
Trump calls for drilling and fracking
Trump leaned into a promise he’s been making in recent weeks to slash Americans’ energy costs in half within a year of taking office — a commitment observers say appeals to consumers grappling with inflation but that may be largely out of his control to accomplish. Lowering energy prices is also an appeal that Nevada’s only Republican congressman, Rep. Mark Amodei, has used in his re-election campaign.
Trump promised on day one to “unleash American energy,” adding that the U.S. has “liquid gold under our feet” and there’s potential for energy independence through fracking — the process of drilling and extracting oil and gas from rock formations.
“We will quickly become energy independent, as we were before, and make America the dominant energy producer in the world by far,” he said. “We will frack, frack, frack and drill baby drill.”
Trump accused Harris of wanting to ban fracking and “anything to do with fossil fuels.”
In 2019, as a senator, Harris said she would ban fracking, but has changed her position since joining Biden on the 2020 ticket.
Trump allies say the president could ease rules around permitting and open up more leases for oil and gas, although experts also point out that lowering the price of oil too much can make it unprofitable for companies to drill in the first place.
Nevada produces nominal amounts of oil, and some efforts at development have hit fierce opposition.
When the state had the option to lease land in the Ruby Mountains for oil and gas development in 2019 under Trump’s administration, the U.S. Forest Service denied the request amid pressure from environmental groups and public outcry.
Trump also criticized the Biden administration’s push toward cleaner vehicles. In March, the Biden administration implemented a rule that could vastly increase the sales of affordable electric vehicles, making electric and battery-powered cars a majority of those manufactured and making gas-powered cars just 29 percent of the new car market in 2032.
Though Trump called it an “insane mandate” that he would remove, the rule does not directly impose electric vehicle quotas. Rather, it sets pollution standards for automakers that would be hard to achieve without developing electric or low-carbon vehicles.
Trump claims union support
In his speech, Trump claimed strong union support for his campaign, citing poll results his campaign has promoted indicating that nearly 60 percent of Teamsters union members in Nevada are backing him, with only about 37 percent support for Harris.
Though the main national body of the Teamsters union declined to endorse a presidential candidate in the upcoming election, Nevada’s Teamsters union chapter endorsed the vice president, saying, “[Teamsters] deserve a committed administration that will relentlessly advocate for their rights, ensure their safety, and prioritize the needs of working people.”
Despite the national Teamsters not endorsing in the race, Trump claimed that the union endorsed him.
“Traditionally, they go Democrat, but we got — all over the nation they endorsed Trump, along with the police along with the firefighters,” he said.
He also said if elected, there will be large tax cuts for workers, especially Nevadans. He vowed not to tax overtime pay or tips — a promise that Harris and Trump have made in an effort to court members of Nevada’s hospitality industry
Although the state’s politically powerful Culinary Union has advocated for ending taxes on tips, it has called Trump an unserious messenger attempting to curry favor with voters and endorsed Harris for president.
In discussing unions, Trump also leaned on fears surrounding illegal immigration, saying that undocumented immigrants are “going to take a lot of union jobs away,” without any evidence.
Immigration and border reform
Trump zeroed in on immigration — an issue high on voters’ priority list and one on which voters say they trust Trump more than Harris — alleging that about 20 million people crossed the border during the Biden-Harris administration.
Fact checkers, however, have said that the source of his data is “unclear.” Reports from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection indicate that since 2021, agents across the country have had more than 7.3 million encounters with migrants trying to illegally cross into the United States.
Trump also promised to strengthen the border and prosecute and use the death penalty “for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement official.”
As part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, he said he would “round up illegal alien gang members” and put them in jail or throw them out of the country “until not a single one is left.”
The penalty for anyone returning he said, would be an automatic 10 years in jail with no possibility of parole.
“We don’t want them to come back,” Trump said.
Reporter Eric Neugeboren contributed reporting to this story
