Nevada Democrats say they’re ready to get to work to elect Harris as president

Donna West watched last week as her political party became overrun by uncertainty about the upcoming presidential election.

What a difference a week makes.

West, a Nevada delegate to next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, is ecstatic to be part of “an incredible time in history,” as the party rallies behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency.

Harris, the presumptive nominee, was elevated to the top of the Democrat ticket this week after President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he was suspending his reelection campaign.

West was part of the festivities Thursday when the Nevada Democratic Party celebrated the launch of Harris’ campaign locally. Speakers at the event included Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, state Sen. Edgar Flores and Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, the Nevada State Democratic Party chair.

Harris in a handful of days has received record-breaking donations, unanimous support from Nevada delegates and a surge of campaign volunteers, the campaign said. Experts also anticipate the vice president’s message will resonate with young voters — who could sway the swing state results — in a way that Biden failed to because of his age.

There was one telling sign at Thursday’s launch: more supporters than chairs for them to sit in.

Michelle Williams, a Las Vegas resident, came to the rally with family members and left as a registered volunteer and ready to make calls for the Harris campaign.

“We finally have a candidate to get excited about,” Williams said. “I was really torn because neither candidate (before Harris’ run) was doing it for me, and I really considered not even voting because I didn’t feel my vote would matter in the count.”

With a little more than 100 days until Election Day, Monroe-Moreno said campaigning for Harris would include building on Nevada Democrats’ ground game, which she called “second to none.” Next week, she said she would start canvassing for Harris — something she intends to do in all 17 counties in the state.

Monroe-Moreno doesn’t believe that Biden dropping out of the race deterred progress the party had made on the campaign trail and anticipates the biggest challenge in the upcoming weeks will be a lack of sleep for the Harris campaign workers and volunteers .

“We’re not late, it was just a bump in the road,” she added.

The campaign’s office in southwest Las Vegas was draped in a mix of both official and handmade Harris signs, including some reading “Latinos por Harris.”

Another sign was a drawing of a coconut tree in reference to a remark she made during a 2023 speech advocating for Latino advancement. The symbol has gone viral on social media with Harris’ supporters.

Speakers Thursday highlighted Harris’ experience as California’s attorney general to draw a contrast with Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and hide an extramarital affair with a porn actor.

“As a prosecutor, Kamala Harris specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Donald Trump is a sexual abuser,” Ford said, referencing a jury’s verdict in a civil case last year that found the former president sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.

“From her time as a courtroom prosecutor taking on sexual assault cases to defending reproductive health care providers from violence as the attorney general — to fighting for reproductive rights and Black maternal health rights as a U.S. senator and helping me pass that legislation in the Nevada Legislature,” Monroe-Moreno said the vice president would continue her “lifetime of fighting for women.”

Throughout Thursday’s events, those in attendance participated in chants and cheers in support of Harris, including, “We’re not going back.” Harris delivered that line during her first campaign rally Tuesday, and it has continued to gain popularity within the party since.

West said working for a Harris victory in November matters because she wants her grandchildren to grow up in a “Democratic world,” where issues she noticed younger generations are passionate about, like climate change and gun violence, are addressed.

“We know we have a lot of work to do,” she said. “But I’m really confident in our teams across the country, but particularly in Nevada. We have such a strong infrastructure.”

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