The line outside the Reno Events Center on a chilly Thursday afternoon stretched around the block in anticipation of the arrival of Vice President Kamala Harris, who brought her energy, optimism and ideas to Northern Nevada less than a week before Election Day.
It was not only a bell-ringing reminder that, as a certain editor likes to remind anyone within shouting range, “we matter,” but it was also a sign that Nevada Democrats understand the stakes.
Republicans understand them, too. A few hundred miles south in Henderson, Donald Trump was busy doing what he always does, airing grievance, misstating poll numbers, and sowing doubt about the election process. Earlier on Thursday in New Mexico, a state he’s never carried and hasn’t gone for a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years, he told a crowd, “We’re leading big in the polls, all of the polls.”
In reality, the polls are divided, but Nevada Republicans can accurately claim a substantial turnout advantage over Democrats in early voting. That’s according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office, the office the GOP will be quick to malign if things don’t go their way.
In Henderson, Trump predictably spent time questioning his opponent’s energy and intelligence, but also said something new. We learned that he believes U.S. Border Patrol officers are capable of determining whether migrants are “good” just by looking at them.
“They can look at them and they can see good or bad,” he said.
Talk about speeding up the immigration process. Who needs visas, passports and paperwork when you have the eagle eyes of the border cops to sort things out?
If he were just rapping his usual stream-of-foggy-consciousness routine, it would be barely worth noting. But he always manages to go further. This time, he even brought former chief of staff retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who has said he had to remind Trump not to praise Adolf Hitler’s leadership skill.
Some people would call that an unforced error, but not in Trumplandia. It’s all part of what the candidate calls his “weave.”
It’s evident that Trump is just marking time while his allies plan what comes next following their filing of dozens of lawsuits – many already dismissed – claiming a variety ballot flaws and offenses. We should anticipate more of the same in the wake of election night.
At the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Ezra Rosenberg is co-director of the Voting Rights Project. Rosenberg took part in a discussion Friday as part of a National Task Force on Election Crises press panel in which he outlined the legal strategies contained in the recent lawsuits. They fall into three general categories: efforts to demand mass purges of voter rolls; attempts to disqualify absentee ballots, and efforts to change the certification process from the state to the county level.
“This election has been unprecedented in terms of pre-election litigation,” Rosenberg says, noting the difference from 2020 when most of the lawsuits were filed after the election. In 2024, more than 100 have been filed “almost entirely within the month right before the election, which is extraordinary.”
And ineffective, he adds, because such changes violate the 90-day cooling off period under the National Voter Registration Act.
So far, few of the efforts have gained legal traction. My question is whether they are really intended to succeed, or merely provide the conspiratorial smoke necessary help upend a free and fair election.
“Sometimes the filing of such appeals or complaints … have a different motive perhaps, and that is to shape public opinion,” Rosenberg says. “And I think it’s unfortunate, because I think the shaping of the opinion is typically to question the validity of election results. Again, we are into fair elections, period. That’s what this is all about. Filing suits for the sake of shaping opinions to question the election is not, in my opinion, a good thing.”
As I’ve warned and whined for months, that means we should anticipate weeks of litigation and congressional and constitutional sleight-of-hand should Trump lose. The guy still can’t admit that he lost the 2020 election, and that it wasn’t “rigged.” Trump has made little secret of his intentions in his half-coy, half-threatening and ever-dissembling way. His surrogates and alarmingly untethered social media influencers have been ginning up the voting paranoia for months.
Given Rosenberg’s sound perspective, it’s probably best for both sides to hold the confetti on Tuesday night – not that I expect them to.
Meanwhile, Nevadans remain flattered by the intense interest in their six electoral votes. It’s certainly added to the daily drama of the 2024 presidential campaign. That both candidates took time to campaign here this late in the race is proof that the election’s outcome could hang in the balance here, “deep in the heart of the golden West.”
Make what you will of the fact they flew in and out on Nevada Day, which was also Halloween.
