LAS VEGAS — Sin City Republicans felt a rare emotion this week as President Biden rambled on during a shambolic 90-minute debate performance — optimism that Nevada will pick former President Donald Trump come November.
It’s been 20 years since a Republican won the Silver State’s electoral votes. In 2004, President George W. Bush claimed the state’s five electors, now standing at six. Trump lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton eight years ago and to Biden in 2020, as the state became more and more blue.
Gathering for a state GOP watch party at the Italian American Club, one of the city’s oldest eateries, the ex-prez’s supporters were at first hopeful but guarded, a mood that was not helped by initial glitches in getting the video and audio of the CNN-hosted debate working properly.
But as the match wore on, Biden’s clear issues answering questions by turns shocked and saddened the crowd.
“I could not understand even two sentences [of] what he was trying to say,” noted Cristiane Mersch, a Summerlin resident and development manager for a crisis pregnancy center. “It worries me. I think he needs a medical, mental exam because he’s not capable to be a president right now.”
Joe Burdzinski, a Las Vegas resident, said “the look at times” on the president’s face was concerning.
“He had a blank expression on his face, his eyeballs would be bulging sometimes,” he said. “His words, especially in his closing statement, he mumbled in his last two minutes.”
Burdzinski said Biden’s comment about more “fentanyl machines” being needed to combat the influx of the deadly synthetic opioid bewildered him.
“During the debate, when he was talking about machines, I couldn’t figure out what kind of machines he was talking about as related to drugs. I don’t know where that fit in or how that worked,” the local said.
Burdzinski, who’s been involved with GOP efforts for 49 years, said he was “feeling the same type of momentum, if you will, that Ronald Reagan experienced in 1980 against Jimmy Carter.”
He added, “I think the economy is a key issue in this election. And under Donald Trump, the economy was doing better gas prices, lower food cost and so on were lower and that will make a big difference here with Democrats and independents.”
Mersch, who heads the local Moms for Liberty chapter and spoke at the June 9 outdoor Trump campaign rally, said the ex-prez’s promise to end taxing of tips offers “a great potential of Trump winning here.”
She said, “I see a lot of people, especially in the culinary industry,” moving toward the presumptive GOP nominee over tax-free tipping.
“Those Latinos, the hard-working families, are being affected by Biden’s policies,” she said.
Political consultant Zachary Hayes said he believes Trump “will probably take the state,” having “come close” in 2020, when he lost to Biden by 33,606 votes.
“I think Biden’s lost too much ground in the state, and the state is getting more favorable to the GOP over time, because it’s more blue collar and working class,” Hayes said. “And the demographic, the changes in how the electorate is voting based on class lines favors the GOP.”
Linda Cassaro, a Buffalo, New York, native who’s lived in Las Vegas for 40 years, believes Biden’s debate disaster should be a wake-up call for Nevada’s Democrats.
“I’m not sure who they would put in his place, but they should be worried.”
She thinks Trump will “definitely” win the state and is “gonna do good things for the country like he did the first time he was elected.”
