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Single Trending Red Battleground State Could Determine Presidential Election

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


The battleground states are very important in every election but in the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris they appear to take on more importance.

The state of Nevada, which only has six electoral votes, could be a massive factor in this election, experts said to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“There are very few paths to victory that do not involve Nevada,” Democrat strategist Dheeraj Chand said to the DCNF.

“It would be a big blow to her when we take those electoral votes,” John McLaughlin, a Trump campaign pollster and CEO of McLaughlin & Associates said.

“One of the particularly interesting things about it is it’s the only state that President Trump lost twice,” Nevada Republican strategist Jeremy Hughes said. “Now, he has a chance to flip it this cycle.”

Various polls show the two presidential candidates neck and neck in the state of Nevada with some having the vice president slightly ahead and others have them tied.

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The state has voted Democrat for decades but both former Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden took the state by a razor thin 2.4 points.

“Republicans were able to win a gubernatorial election, which I would say, outside of Brian Kemp, was maybe the bright spot for Republicans on election night [in 2022],” Hughes said to the DCNF.

“So it has moved a little to the right. Voter registration in the state has also moved significantly. In fact, I think more Republicans than Democrats will vote in this election,” he said.

Nevada has a Democrat governor and two Democrat senators but 15 of the state’s 17 counties have voted Republican in the previous two elections and the form president’s no tax on tips policy speaks to a massive issue in the state that derives 55 percent of its income from tourism.

“Nevadans are focused on the issues that hit closest to home—kitchen table issues like rising costs, stagnant wages, and affordable housing,” Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, a senior Trump advisor, said to the DCNF. “When we ask ourselves if we are better off than we were four years ago, for most of us, the answer is no. The cost of living has gone up, gas prices remain high, and inflation continues to erode the value of our hard-earned paychecks.”

“President Trump’s emphasis on helping Americans keep more of their hard-earned money, from no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, and no taxes on overtime work, is resonating with voters across our state,” he said. “As Nevadans look to the future, they are increasingly turning to President Trump’s economic policies as the solution to getting ahead, not just getting by.”

At 5.5 percent, Nevada currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, which was hard hit by the pandemic.

“When the country gets a cold, Nevada gets the flu,” Hughes said to the DCNF. “Everything is economic. Everything on the economy hurts more in Nevada, and people will remember how the economy was when President Trump was in office.”

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“If we lose Nevada, it is because we are having problems with the service industry, and because we’re having a lot of problems with Latinos generally,” Chand said.

And because the state has around a 20 percent Hispanic population appealing to those voters is important.

“The reason why Kamala Harris is doing her Univision town hall in Vegas is precisely because we’re doing so well with Latino voters,’ McLaughlin said. “Harris is in trouble in Nevada.”

“I think it’s really important to be clear about this,” Chand said to the DCNF. “It’s not so much that is a Republican, or that it’s Trump who gained, as much as it is a Democratic loss. Some of this is Democratic defection.”

“When you talk about Hispanic voters, you talk about American citizens,” McLaughlin said. “Hispanic voters are coming to Trump because, like other Americans, they’ve gotten hurt by inflation. The basic cost of food and gas, buying a car, buying a house, or paying rent has hurt them.”

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