Eighty miles east of Las Vegas in the town of Mesquite, Nev., election volunteers pack in a Harris-Walz campaign office to face a tougher – and more consequential – election assignment than any on offer in their home state of California.
They’ll be canvassing this part of rural Nevada today, approaching mostly the all-important independent voters, a big slice of the state’s electorate, and people who’ve sat out past elections but might be persuaded to vote this year.
“This is tough terrain, this is MAGA world,” local campaign organizer Elaine Hurd tells them. Republicans have a more than two-to-one registration advantage over Democrats in this part of Nevada.
Southern Californians who travel to rural Nevada to rustle up votes for Kamala Harris find plenty of Trump supporters when they get there. Photo by Saul Gonzalez.
These volunteers are among the many from reliably blue California who are traveling to swing states to campaign both for Kamala Harris and local Democratic candidates locked in tight races.
Hurd says local Democrats in this part of Nevada can sometimes feel intimidated, and that makes the arrival of out-of-state volunteers especially welcome.
“Some people are shy about going around their own community, broadcasting that they’re Democrats in such a Republican area,” she says. “But the Californians don’t care, they aren’t going to see these people again.”
Beth Marcus, who’s from Pasadena, drove 350 miles to get to Mesquite, a place where she feels she can make more of a practical difference in the election.
“We know California is going to go for Harris,” says Marcus. “This election is scaring me to death, and so I feel like I have to do something.”
Many of the Southern California volunteers who have come to Nevada are seniors, like Armando Gonzalez and his wife Brenda Berg from Glendale.
They say they can’t bear the thought of former President Donald Trump being re-elected and will go anywhere to help make sure that doesn’t happen.
“We see a need, and so we went where we felt we could do some good,” says Berg.
Gonzalez notes that he and his wife are both in their 80s and wanted to make the trip to Nevada during an election cycle when they still could.
“We don't know where we're going to be in four years from now, so we think this is really important in our lives right now for all the younger people,” says Gonzalez.
Nevada campaign organizer Elaine Hurd gives Democratic Party volunteers their canvassing assignments. Photo by Saul Gonzalez.
Hurd says the out-of-staters seem to enjoy the challenges of campaigning in Mesquite and other off-the-beaten-path Nevada communities.
“If they didn’t love it, they would not have signed up and made the drive from Southern California, past Las Vegas, to come out here – because our community is not as glitzy and fun as Las Vegas,” says Hurd, herself a California transplant to the Silver State.
At the end of their campaign briefing, the volunteers are broken up into groups and told where they’ll be canvassing today, some to places another long drive away.
But just outside the Democrats’ campaign office, there’s a noisy reminder of the challenges facing the California volunteers. It’s a caravan of raucous pro-Trump supporters.
A vehicle in a pro-Trump caravan cruises Mesquite, Nevada. Photo by Saul Gonzalez.