Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, left, and Congresswoman Susie Lee, D-Nev., speak to supporters, before a car parade to Henderson City Hall, during a voting event at Heritage Park in Henderson Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020.
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020 | 5:45 p.m.
For Frank Slaughter, the September report from The Atlantic claiming that President Donald Trump had called veterans “suckers” and “losers” was the final straw.
Slaughter, who served with both the Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force, comes from a family of veterans. His father and two cousins died while serving.
“The things that Trump said about veterans, it’s just didn’t wash,” Slaughter said, stressing that he was disgusted about Trump’s disparaging remarks about former Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war for five years in Vietnam.
Slaughter, a former UNLV boxing coach, was part of a group of voters who turned out Tuesday for a parade to Henderson City Hall to drop off mail ballots and encourage voter mobilization. The event was one of several held in Southern Nevada with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, who called Nevada a “really important part of our pathway to the White House.”
Perez stressed the need for Nevadans to participate in early voting, which begins Saturday.
Perez, after an earlier voter mobilization event at Las Vegas City Hall, called Trump an “albatross” around the neck of down-ballot Republicans.
“I have confidence that we can pull this off because everybody is suffering from the same crisis and they see in Donald Trump a colossal failure on the coronavirus front, a failure on the economy, a failure to address police reform issues,” Perez said.
As of Tuesday, there have been almost 7.8 million total coronavirus cases in the United States, as well as over 214,000 deaths. In Nevada, there have been around 86,400 cases and 1,670 deaths. The federal government’s handling of the pandemic has been one of, if not the most, prevalent talking points for Democrats.
“People understand that when you have a global pandemic, you can’t have 50 different solutions to that pandemic — you need federal leadership,” Perez said.
The Henderson parade was led by a truck with Perez and Democratic Rep. Susie Lee, whose district makes up much of Henderson. A few cars behind them, Boyd Penton’s Hyundai Tucson was decorated with swag from the Joe Biden campaign.
Penton was a Ronald Reagan supporter for his first term but has supported Democratic causes and campaigns since in various states.
“I really feel like that’s what we’re fighting for right now, is democracy,” Penton said.
Though Penton said he feels “pretty damn strong” about Democrats’ chances in Nevada, he stressed they “can’t slow down until it’s done.”
Lee, who has been challenged in her district by Republican “Big Dan” Rodimer, said that the Trump administration’s record on the coronavirus will hurt them in November, and called Rodimer a rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda.
“This administration’s total failing in their (management) has really led to the loss of livelihoods for millions and millions of Americans,” Lee said. “It’s felt so acutely here in Southern Nevada.”
Perez, in introducing Lee, went after Trump’s handling of the recent coronavirus outbreak in the White House, in which Trump and the first lady, along with multiple aides, were infected.
“He can’t get a handle on the coronavirus in the West Wing, let alone America,” Perez said.
