It’s been 20 years since a Republican presidential candidate won Nevada. In 2004, Facebook was launched, Google had its initial public offering and the final episodes of Friends aired. Chris Carr was the executive director of the Nevada Republican Party and Rick Gorka was organizing field teams in Clark County and running checks to canvassers. A lot has changed, but why did it take so long for a Republican presidential candidate to win Nevada again? The answer is more complicated.
Recently, a Republican candidate winning statewide in Nevada was tough, and winning as a presidential candidate was almost impossible. The difference in 2024 is that President-elect Donald Trump built a coalition that had been as elusive as a hole in one. Building a base of voters to win Nevada required the right message, the right messenger and the ground game to harness the former into a win on Election Day.
That is exactly what Trump and his team did. They fought tirelessly to educate voters at their front doors, register voters and ignore the constant second-guessing from the so-called professional political class. Looking back, this has been an eight-year effort and Trump and his team deserve a tremendous amount of credit for constantly working to find the winning formula here in Nevada.
During the last two decades Republicans have worked on voter registration and door-to-door canvassing operations that are difficult because they are expensive and extremely time-consuming. We also invested in extensive data modeling and microtargeting of Nevada’s electorate as well as a deep look at its low-propensity voters. This allowed the campaign and outside groups to run a data-driven messaging campaign focused on dispersing diverse targeted mail, creative ads and, of course, canvassing.
The difference is Trump’s message resonated with a wide coalition of voters who endured the elitism that started with President Barack Obama, continued under President Joe Biden, and finally became intolerable with Vice President Kamala Harris. Democrats have become the party of coastal elites who do not understand that an extra $700 a month to buy the same goods and services in 2024 that they did in 2020 is a heartbreaking, budget-destroying reality for too many Nevadans. Out-of-touch Democrats lack the vision and message to win, which is why Nevada went Republican for the first time in 20 years and Trump won all seven swing states.
The bulk of the credit goes to Trump and his team. Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, and James Blair put together a plan that focused on low-propensity voters to redefine the electorate and then executed it to perfection. Having worked with them for years, we built trust around a shared approach to move Nevada’s six electoral votes to our column. We had the privilege of assisting with our own PAC, State Action Fund, to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors (including some nonpartisan voters), bringing Trump’s message directly to voters, some of whom have been ignored in the past and have never seen a GOP canvasser at their door in previous cycles. All of this was complemented by America PAC to make Nevada a well-oiled machine humming on all cylinders that made history in 2024.
We employed similar tactics for now-Gov. Joe Lombardo in 2022. With Better Nevada PAC and Lombardo’s team, we used data to know down to the voter in the household what message best resonated. We knew that low-propensity voters were angry at what has happened during the last four years. The worst inflation in four decades forced families to make cuts to basic necessities, take on second or third jobs, and, at the end of the month, realizing the paycheck still did not stretch far enough.
After finally cracking the code in consecutive cycles, we know how to win in Nevada and Democrats should be worried as we build upon the wins in 2022 and 2024.
Rick Gorka is the president of Sandpiper Strategies, which provides campaign services to candidates.
Chris Carr is a senior adviser at Sandpiper Strategies.
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