Obama to Rally Las Vegas Democrats as Nevada Early Voting Begins

Former President Barack Obama will be in Las Vegas on Saturday to rally Democrat voters to get to the polls when Nevada’s Oct. 19–Nov. 1 early voting period begins.

Fewer than 15 percent of the state’s electorate normally cast ballots on Election Day. Therefore, galvanizing early votes and mail-in ballot turnout is the key for any candidate to win any race in the battleground state.

It is Obama’s first campaign-related visit to the Silver State in support of the Democratic ticket in this election cycle after an Oct. 10 rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He will stop by Tucson, Arizona on Oct. 18.

The three states are among the seven battleground states where forecasters and pundits say the 2024 presidential election between Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump will be determined.

As of Oct. 1, the Nevada Secretary of State Office reports nearly 2.4 of the state’s 3.2 million residents are registered to vote. The Las Vegas metropolitan statistical area, which includes Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson, accounts for 71 percent of the state’s population—and three of the state’s four Congressional districts—with an estimated 2.337 million residents, mostly in Clark County,

The Oct. 1 voter roll includes 718,625 registered as Democrats, 673,828 as Republicans, and 825,179 signed on as nonpartisan. More than 180,000 are third-party voters, including nearly 110,000 registered with the Independent American Party (IAP).

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Candidates must earn nonpartisan and third-party votes in and around Las Vegas to win Nevada, one of the nation’s most purple states.

Democrats have narrow state legislature majorities, but former Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, a Republican, was elected governor in 2022, handily defeating incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak.

In the triple-tier battleground state, Nevadans are regarded not only as one of the nation’s seven key constituencies in winning the state’s six presidential electoral college votes but in determining which party controls Congress starting in January 2025.

Republicans see the Silver State as pivotal in flipping the Senate with the GOP’s Sam Brown challenging incumbent Sen. Jackie Rosen (D-Nev.).

Democrats see reelecting three Democrat incumbents defending Las Vegas-area congressional districts as essential if they are to take back the House.

These races have gotten tighter over the last decade, making Las Vegas a hotly contested electoral playing field for presidential and Senate hopefuls, as well as House candidates vying for its three congressional districts.

In 2020, President Joe Biden edged then-President Donald Trump by 2.39 percent—fewer than 34,600 votes—in Nevada. In 2022, Democrats narrowly defended Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s Senate seat, defeating Brown and retaining the three House seats in hard-won victories.

Of 1.4 million Nevadans who voted in the 2020 presidential race, fewer than 160,000 voted on Election Day, while 672,000 did so by mail and 578,303 during the early voting period. Biden won about 500,000 of those mail-in votes, while Trump captured nearly 300,000 of the early votes.

That is why Obama will stump for Harris and down-ballot Democrats in Nevada on the first day of early voting, encouraging Democrats to get to polling sites or mail in their votes as soon as possible.

All 2.397 million Nevada registered voters will automatically receive 2024 general election ballots in the mail between Oct. 16–22. They must be postmarked by Election Day—Nov. 5—and arrive no later than Nov. 9 to be included in the official tally.

Obama won the state by more than 12 percentage points in the presidential election in 2008, the largest margin of victory in any presidential race this century, and by 7 percentage points in 2012.

The 44th president rallied for Cortez Masto and the three Democrat House incumbents in November 2022, for Biden in 2020, and for Rosen in October 2018.

Nevada Democrats need all the boosters they can fire up in 2024, with polls indicating Republicans are gaining ground.

An Emerson College Polling/8 News Now/The Hill poll released Oct. 10 showed Harris leading by less than 1 percent. Other polls indicate Trump has a slight edge. Surveys also confirm there is little daylight between Rosen and Brown and between candidates for the three Las Vegas-area House seats.

Obama’s swing through western battleground states is part of a broader party effort. Former President Bill Clinton will stump in Georgia Oct. 20–21 before embarking on a North Carolina bus tour.