Donald Trump’s political swing through the West continues Sunday with his first campaign rally since his historic conviction at his New York hush money trial last month.
The event in Las Vegas follows a flurry of stops for the former president that included high-dollar fundraisers in California and a campaign town hall in Arizona. On Saturday night, he attended a fundraiser in Las Vegas hosted by construction equipment tycoon Don Ahern, a longtime ally.
Trump’s excursion out West comes at a critical juncture for his campaign. The former president is looking to shift the narrative to his general election message after a seven-week-long criminal trial that culminated in his conviction on 34 felony counts related to a hush money scheme to pay off a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
During his visit to Las Vegas, the Trump campaign is expected to launch a new “Latino Americans for Trump” coalition, as it looks to increase its outreach to Hispanic voters ahead of November’s election. The decision to launch the new program in Nevada is no coincidence.
Recent polling has indicated a noticeable shift toward Trump among Hispanic voters, who have traditionally voted Democratic. In a state like Nevada, where Latino voters make up a sizable portion of the electorate, siphoning away some of them could help deliver Trump the critical battleground state, and potentially the White House. Nevada has backed the Democratic nominee for president in four consecutive elections – but Joe Biden carried it by just 2 points in 2020.
“Some of us believe that we might be better positioned in Nevada [this cycle] than we are even in Georgia,” one source close to Trump told CNN.
Trump campaign sources pointed specifically to the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason for their optimism. Nevada was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, given its dependence on tourism and hospitality.
One senior adviser said there are also plans to try and work with the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union, which has traditionally worked closely with Democrats as part of a massive get-out-the-vote operation crafted by late Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. Last month, the union unendorsed several Democratic state lawmakers over their votes to remove Covid-era cleaning requirements placed on the casino industry.
A critical moment
Immigration, crime and the economy are expected to be a central part of Trump’s speech in Las Vegas, senior Trump advisers told CNN.
“Las Vegas has been hit really hard on a lot of different fronts, especially when it comes to housing costs and home ownership and rising food costs in that region. It’s a really big issue over there,” one of the advisers said.
