Speaker Paul Ryan stumps for Hardy, Tarkanian in Southern Nevada

By Megan Messerly

Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016 | 3:57 p.m.

House Speaker Paul Ryan hopped on the campaign trail in Nevada today in the hopes of protecting two congressional seats that Republicans are in jeopardy of losing.

Speaking at two campaign events on the same day Vice President Joe Biden visited Southern Nevada, Ryan outlined the Republican vision: repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, changing the tax code and fixing national security issues. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden, a congressman from Oregon, joined Ryan to emphasize the importance of Republicans turning out to vote.

In North Las Vegas, Ryan focused on the “Better Way” policy agenda, a 213-page document that outlines a number of reforms House Republicans hope to accomplish during the next session. Ryan called Republican Rep. Cresent Hardy, who represents Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, “one of the architects” of the plan.

“This is a battle to replace poverty with opportunity,” Ryan said, speaking to a crowd of 80 or so at the Pearson Community Center. “Too much of what government does — it sees success as effort. How much money are we spending? How many programs are we creating?”

He praised the local Hope for Prisoners program, a nonprofit that helps ex-offenders make the transition back into society, as a “beautiful manifestation of the idea we’re talking about.”

“Do you know what the American idea is? It’s really simple: The condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life,” Ryan said.

At no point during either event did Ryan or any other speaker mention the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, who has been a polarizing figure for Republicans up and down the ballot across the country.

Las Vegas Urban League CEO and President Kevin Hooks, a registered Democrat, emphasized the need for everyone’s help in fighting poverty, saying that it knows no color, gender or political preference. The Urban League is one of the valley’s biggest poverty-fighting organizations.

“I want you to understand something. We are recruiting each and every one of you to this fight — this fight to eradicate poverty, this fight to become up standers, not bystanders,” Hooks said.

He noted that, while 50 percent of black children in the Las Vegas Valley receive free or reduced-price lunches at school, that means 50 percent of them don't.

“That means this American dream is working; we just got to make it work better,” Hooks said.

Hardy, who is facing a tough re-election battle against Democratic state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, talked about the unemployment rate in his district, where 29,000 people are unemployed and 219,000 people have left the workforce. The unemployment rate is 8.7 percent in the district, which spans from the northern portion of Clark County to southern Lyon County and includes all of Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye and White Pine counties.

Hardy said that while he and Hooks have different backgrounds, they share the same principle: “If you have hard work you can achieve anything.”

California Congresswoman Mimi Walters, one of Hardy’s freshman colleagues, described Hardy as the “type of guy you can approach and you can talk with.”

“You don’t have a better person representing you here in Nevada,” Walters said.

A handful of people from local progressive organizations — the Culinary Union, Battle Born Progress and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada — protested outside the event, holding signs comparing Hardy to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and asking him what he had done for west Las Vegas, which he once referred to as the “darker side of town.”

In southwest Las Vegas, Ryan praised congressional candidate Danny Tarkanian as a “great family man” who “has the courage of his convictions.” Tarkanian is running against Democrat Jacky Rosen to represent Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, which spans from Summerlin to Henderson and covers the entire southern tip of Nevada.

“We need Danny Tarkanian to have the strength and the conviction that he has to bring those deep Nevada roots that he has to Congress to get our country back on track,” said Ryan to the crowd of 40 or so who had gathered in a small room at Tarkanian’s campaign headquarters.

In his brief introduction of Ryan, Tarkanian thanked the crowd for its hard work, saying, “What you guys are doing is making a huge difference for me.”

Ryan also took a shot at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after the recent announcement by FBI Director James Comey that the agency has received additional emails as part of a separate investigation.

“For the young people here who didn’t live in the ’90s like we did, this is what life is like with the Clintons,” Ryan said. “It’s scandal after scandal after scandal. Right around the corner, another investigation, you don’t know what’s coming next, playing by a different set of rules, using the system to help themselves, not to help us. Good grief. Do we want four years of this?”

Ryan emphasized the importance of Republicans turning out to vote if they want to see a Republican agenda in Congress over the next couple of years.

“We need to run through the tape. We need to get people to the polls. We need to win this election,” Ryan said. “We know what we need to do to turn this country around.”