A day after Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, and endorsed Harris as the new Democratic presidential candidate, Democrats across Nevada are largely getting behind the unprecedented campaign shakeup.
Just 24 hours after announcing her candidacy, Harris had already raised $81 million in campaign funds – with notable support from small donors.
Democratic party operatives say that energy has largely been matched in Nevada, a battleground state that’s likely to play a pivotal role in the November general election.
“Democrats are more excited now than they’ve been, probably, since the Obama administration. Or at least maybe since Hillary Clinton in 2016,” said Aaron Sims with the Rural Nevada Democratic Caucus.
Meanwhile, experts predicted delegates would name Harris as the party’s official nominee during the Democratic National Convention in August. And they dismissed legal threats from conservative groups and GOP politicians, who claim the last-minute change means Harris is ineligible to run.
Harris’ path forward in Nevada
Political science experts in Nevada say Harris has a likely path forward to becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. This is especially true as prominent Democrats have quickly rallied behind her, said Jeremy Gelman, an associate professor of political science at UNR. But he said it’s not guaranteed.
The change has shaken up a race that was viewed as static for a while, he said.
“Biden was trailing Trump, and had been trailing Trump here for a year and a half in the polling,” Gelman said. “A lot of that has to do with Democrats not feeling particularly enthusiastic about Biden, much less so than Trump turning out an unusually large number of Republicans.”
He’ll be paying attention between now and the convention to see how delegates are responding before they make their choice. He explained how Harris can appeal to Nevadans before November.
“There’s a large segment of Nevada voters, Democrats and independents alike, who will just never vote for Donald Trump. So that’s really boding well for her,” Gelman said. “The economy isn’t perfect, but we’re not in a recession, people aren’t getting laid off en masse, and that usually helps the incumbent party’s candidate. She’s not the incumbent, though, and usually incumbent presidential candidates tend to do better.”
But the decision doesn’t come without the threat of potential litigation. Before Biden officially announced he was ending his re-election campaign, the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation was already preparing legal battles in swing states including Nevada to prevent a switch up.
Athar Haseebullah, ACLU of Nevada executive director, said the claims have no legal grounds.
“I really don’t see any way forward,” Haseebullah said. “If anyone does decide to take up bets, this is the safest bet I’d recommend, is that a lawsuit here would lose.”
According to Nevada state law, each major political party must provide the President and Vice Presidents’ names to the secretary of state by 5 p.m. on the first business day in September during a presidential election year.
Mixed reactions from some Northern Nevada voters
Tony Stephenson, the Lyon County Democratic Central Committee Chair, was surprised to hear Biden’s announcement, saying that the media was more vocal about delegates calling for him to step down than within the Democratic party.
“I was surprised, I thought that the President really was going to stay in it for the long haul, and that all the clamoring would subside,” he said.
There have been mixed reactions from local voters.
“What I’m hearing is that there was some disappointment that the president dropped out of the race, but then there were a lot of folks who were very excited when he put his backing to the vice president,” Stephenson said.
The Democratic Party plans to handle the election process the same way it has been and will support whoever becomes the nominee after the Democratic National Convention, according to Stephenson. But he said voter support has quickly shifted to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We do have a lot of voters now who are getting behind the vice president. That’s kind of a positive, and I say that because it’s better to go into the convention with an idea of who the folks really want, rather than having chaos erupt,” he said.
‘You don’t gotta wear cowboy boots’
Sims said he was both saddened and relieved to hear Biden was stepping down. Saddened, because he said Biden has accomplished a lot as president. But relieved, because polling has shown many voters don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch.
Now that Harris is in the running, Sims has some advice for how she should approach rural Nevadans.
“You don’t gotta wear cowboy boots,” he said. “And you don't gotta pretend to be something that you’re not.”
Instead, Sims recommended focusing on issues that directly impact working class people.
“Talk about bringing in health care to their communities, that would be so tremendous. We’ve been begging for this for decades. Talk about fixing our schools,” he said.
As long as Harris does that, Sims thinks she’ll have an easy time reaching rural voters.
Although Harris’ spot at the top of the ticket appears to be locked in, Sims predicted the convention could still prove surprising.
“The real question is not really much about who's gonna be at the top of the ticket, but rather who's going to be the second choice for vice president,” he said.
Political observers have assembled a list of around 10 Democratic officials who they say are most likely to be tapped for the job.
But no matter what happens, Stephenson said Nevada Democrats will present a united front for the general election.
“Our job is to elect Democrats up and down the ticket. So whoever comes out of the Chicago Democratic National Convention as our nominee is who we're going to support,” he said.
