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To many Americans, Las Vegas is a burst of glittering hotels and seedy wedding chapels, a mirage-like city rising improbably from the Mojave Desert.
The Americans who live in Las Vegas know the city as a destination for the middle class: Valets and cocktail waitresses become homeowners. Immigrants who arrive with empty pockets build thriving businesses. Workers without college degrees, empowered by strong unions, accumulate real wealth.
Lately though, Las Vegas — like much of the United States — has become more expensive. The cost of housing is soaring. People from California and other expensive states are moving to Nevada, driving up home prices even further. Though they have dipped slightly over the past year, rents in Las Vegas are still roughly 35 percent higher than in December 2019, before the pandemic, according to data from Zillow.
Outside a community center on the northwest side of town one recent morning, Carl Singleton, 71, and his brother power-walked around a track under the bright Nevada sun, regaling me with stories about the way the city used to be. Born in rural Louisiana, Mr. Singleton arrived in Las Vegas in 1974 and started out as a porter at the Mint Hotel, now known as Binion’s Gambling Hall and Hotel, earning around $27 per day. About a year later, he said, he bought a house for $22,500.
Now voters across Las Vegas say they are struggling to hold on to their middle-class way of life. Most hold a grim view of the Republican Party and do not want to see Donald Trump return to the White House. But they also say they are beginning to question whether politicians in Washington are too out of touch to fight for them.
Although Democrats have performed well in the state in recent years, those victories are often razor-thin. This year, it could be even harder for the party to keep its coalition of voters motivated.
“Las Vegas is a blue-collar town that doesn’t know it’s blue collar. You used to be able to make a lot of money as a valet, a cocktail waitress, as a gaming bartender. It’s changed,” Jen Evans, 49, told me. She does not support Mr. Trump, voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and is considering staying home in November. “I don’t know that the Democrats stand for what I thought they stood for,” Ms. Evans said.
Part of the problem may be a lack of faith that the result of the presidential election will have an effect on the issues that matter to them. Around Las Vegas, my questions about Nevadans’ views on the race elicited quizzical looks, apathy or frustration about the persistence of problems like high prices and gun violence.
At Shanghai Plaza, a busy strip mall, Christine Nguyen, 26, said she voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but doubted she would vote this November. “I don’t see the point,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to make a difference.”
Others said they felt failed by politics. Shauna Rodriguez, 42, a dental assistant and mother of seven, said she always seemed to earn too much to qualify for government assistance but never enough to pay the bills, even when she was a single mother. The experience soured her on the political system. “No matter who I was voting for, I wasn’t getting help.” She said she stopped voting several years ago.
At the Mirabelli Community Center on the west side of the city, just a handful of people attended a recent nonpartisan voter education forum whose sponsors included the City Clerk’s Office, the Las Vegas N.A.A.C.P. branch and a historically Black fraternity. “This is the most important election of our lifetime,” Lance Downes-Covington, an official with the City Clerk’s Office, told the audience. The small group of voters stared back at him blankly.
Democratic campaign veterans say the state is always among the hardest and most expensive to win. Nevadans tend to be younger and more transient than residents of other swing states. There are many first-time voters to persuade in Las Vegas and a smaller coalition of reliable voters. Attachment to political parties is weak: More voters in Nevada are independent than are registered with either the Democratic or Republican Party. It doesn’t have the same robust political culture as, say, Iowa or New Hampshire.
The exception in Las Vegas is union voters. Some 146,000 workers in Nevada, about 11 percent, belong to unions, and their bond with Mr. Biden is strong. The Culinary Workers Union Local 226, the state’s largest and most powerful union, negotiated new contracts with hotel and casino operators late last year that included significant pay increases for nearly all its 60,000 members.
That has put union members in a bullish mood. Carlos Padilla, a veteran pastry chef at Treasure Island, a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, stepped away from one recent organizing event to share his enthusiasm. “Easy. I’m voting for Biden,” Mr. Padilla said. “He’s the most pro-union president I’ve experienced. He cares.”
The real coup for Democrats would be if they can tap into this energy to convince other workers that Mr. Biden has their interests in mind. The canvassing campaign the Culinary Workers local plans for Democrats this year, similar to the huge efforts it made in 2020 and 2022, is needed more than ever.
Biden campaign officials say they know what is required to win this challenging state. They say the campaign has already made a seven-figure investment in paid media, including several Spanish-language TV ads. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats have begun promoting steps the White House has made that directly benefit Nevadans. That includes a $35 monthly cap on insulin for people with diabetes — a measure campaign officials said has cut costs for more than half a million Nevada seniors on Medicare. At a campaign event with Ms. Harris recently, she asked who in the crowd knew someone with diabetes, and hands flew up.
Campaign officials are talking more about how the state has benefited since Mr. Biden took office: They said 285,000 jobs had been created, more than $3.3 billion in infrastructure improvements delivered and student debt canceled for more than 7,000 residents. At a stop in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said he was aware that many Americans are struggling despite these measures. “I know, we know, we have a lot more to do,” he told voters. “Not everyone is feeling the benefits of our investments and progress yet.”
Economic issues may not be decisive for every voter, however. Geneses Diaz, 27, a master’s student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said higher costs had led her mother to consider getting a second job. “To see them pinch pennies, it’s hard,” she said of her parents. But she plans to vote for Mr. Biden anyway. “The biggest issue for me really isn’t the economy. The biggest issue really is Trump was such a disaster to our country,” she said.
Life in Las Vegas is becoming harder. As it does, Democrats may find themselves working double time to get a reluctant electorate to the polls.
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