‘I know the people of Nevada’: Kamala Harris rallies 14,000+ in Las Vegas

Despite the enormous enthusiasm surrounding her campaign since its launch, Harris told the Las Vegas crowd there’s still plenty of work to do to defeat Donald Trump in November. 

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz on Saturday capped a week of barnstorming across several key battleground states with a stop in Las Vegas, where energized rallygoers said the vice president’s candidacy marks an opportunity to usher in a new chapter of American politics. 

More than 14,000 showed up for Saturday’s rally at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center, though Las Vegas police intervened to turn away thousands more, citing the high temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit and difficulties faced by the event staff in bringing people in the door, according to a campaign spokesperson. 

“But don’t worry, we’re going to be back a lot,” Walz, currently the governor of Minnesota, said to raucous applause. “Rarely do you get an opportunity, in 87 days, to change the trajectory of not just today or tomorrow, but for generations.”

Attendees of Saturday’s rally said they see Harris as a source of change compared to President Joe Biden, but even more so former President Donald Trump. If elected, Harris would become the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first person of South Asian descent to hold the presidency. 

“We’ve had 46 white guys plus [Barack] Obama — it’s time for a change,” said Las Vegas resident Todd Blair. “This is such an important election. We consider democracy to be at stake here, and she has the ability to save our democracy.” 

The event marked, by far, the largest showing for a Democratic presidential candidate in Nevada this cycle. Recent polling has also shown Harris leading Trump across several swing states, including Nevada, spotlighting a near-total reversal in Democratic fortune in the nearly three weeks following Biden’s decision to suspend his own re-election efforts and pass the baton to Harris.

“It’s crazy to see the difference in the campaign from a couple of weeks ago,” said Kevin McCormick, of Bishop, Calif. “It felt like it was a done deal as of a couple weeks ago and, now all of a sudden, we’re back in the fight and there’s some real energy behind it.” 

Despite the enormous enthusiasm surrounding her campaign, Harris isn’t getting ahead of herself. She acknowledged that while the polls look promising, the campaign still needs to earn trust from Americans from all walks of life. 

“We know this will be a tight race until the very end,” Harris said. “So let’s not pay too much attention to the polls, because we have some hard work ahead of us, [and] we like hard work.”

As of Saturday, 87 days remained until the Nov. 5 election, and the Harris campaign has been tasked with not only communicating her vision for the country in an unprecedentedly short timespan, but also introducing herself and Walz to voters just waking up to the race. 

And Harris told Saturday’s crowd that her vision is based largely on strengthening the middle class. Harris endorsed a bipartisan proposal being spearheaded by Nevada US Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto to eliminate federal taxes on tipped income, said she’d expand access to child care, and promised to bring down consumer prices plagued by inflation. 

“When the middle class is strong, America is strong,” Harris said. “We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for America’s families, not so they have a chance just to get by, but to get ahead.” 

Harris additionally touted her record on reproductive rights, and expressed a desire to ban access to assault-style weapons and expand voting rights. She also tackled an issue in migration at the southern border that others in her party have long balked at. She slammed Trump for encouraging Republicans in Congress to abandon a bipartisan proposal that sought sweeping changes to the asylum process.

“Earlier this year, we had the chance to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades, because he thought it would help him win an election,” Harris said. “Well, when I am president, I will sign that bill into law. 

Harris and the rest of Saturday’s Democratic speakers also sought to provide a stark contrast between her and Trump. Harris rose to prominence first as a local prosecutor, and then as California Attorney General, a role in which she sued a predatory for-profit college, earned a multimillion dollar settlement against one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, and fought to uphold rule of law in one of the largest states in the country. 

“I will gladly put my record next to his any day of the week,” Harris said. “That being said, let’s make no mistake. This campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. It is about two different visions for our nation. One, ours, focused on the future. The other, focused on the past. We’re not going back.”

Harris also took aim at Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation that Trump has tried to distance himself from, even though it was worked on by at least 140 members of the Trump White House. 

“I coached football for enough years to know when somebody draws up a playbook, they plan on using it,” Walz said.

Project 2025 calls for, among other things, loosening child labor laws, slashing funding for the Head Start child care program, restricting access to medication abortion, and disbanding agencies like the National Weather Service, which would make it more difficult to prepare for natural disasters like hurricanes, storms, and extreme heat. 

Project 2025 also calls for restarting the permitting process for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project only about 100 miles from Las Vegas — a proposal that has been stalled for years, in large part because of bipartisan opposition over several decades. 

Both Harris and Trump know the electoral importance of Nevada. Both have been here several times in recent months, and Saturday’s trip marks Harris’ seventh visit to the Silver State since January. 

While Nevada is only worth six votes in the Electoral College, the race is tight enough nationally that both candidates admit every vote matters. All signs point to that especially being the case in Nevada. 

“I know the people of Nevada,” Harris said. “You are battle born, and if Donald Trump wants to pick a fight over our most fundamental freedoms, we say, ‘Bring it on.’”