Former President Barack Obama will come to Las Vegas on Oct. 19 — the first day of early voting in Nevada — to rally for Vice President Kamala Harris.
It is the popular Democrat’s first campaign-related trip to Nevada of the cycle.
Obama will stump for Harris and down-ballot Democrats and encourage early voting, the Harris campaign said. The former president held a rally in Pittsburgh on Thursday night, the first of several swing state events he plans to headline in the final month of the campaign.
He’s been brought out as the closer for several Democratic campaigns in Nevada in recent years, including a November rally in 2022 with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) and House Democrats and an October 2018 event with then-Senate candidate Jacky Rosen.
The former president won Nevada by more than 12 percentage points in 2008 — the largest margin this century — and by 7 percentage points in 2012. Democrats won the subsequent two presidential elections in the state, but by narrower margins of 2.5 percentage points.
Even eight years after he left office, Obama remains immensely popular, rating well above other Democratic presidents, and is a powerful messenger for Democratic campaigns.
Early voting is also a key part of the Harris campaign’s strategy, which aims to turn out as many voters as early as possible in order to spend the key days and weeks before Election Day focusing outreach on people who have not yet voted.
Obama was last in Las Vegas in July, when he gave a brief speech at a pre-Olympics USA Basketball event flanked by the men’s team.
