Trump’s ‘Peaceful Protesters’ Gather Inside Near The Vegas Strip, Defying Coronavirus Lockdown
by Jim Rossi
President Donald J. Trump took his re-election campaign to Las Vegas over the weekend, speaking to a large, raucous crowd east of The Strip. The rally, along with another in northern Nevada a night earlier, directly challenged Governor Steve Sisolak’s ban on gatherings over fifty people.
In a rousing, hyperbolic, often funny seventy-minute speech in front of roughly a thousand people in a company warehouse, with hundreds more outside, President Trump focused on law and order in a critical swing state. He repeatedly warned Nevadans that a vote for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and whoever is typing the answers into Biden’s teleprompter on November 3rd would be a vote for mobs, riots, socialism, and anarchy. “We know that police officers are not villains,” Trump said, hours after a gunman ambushed two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies, then Black Lives Matter protesters chanted “We hope they die” and tried to rush the hospital emergency room. “Biden is too weak to be president,” Trump said, “and he’s not a smart person.”
Trump also lauded his administration’s efforts on trade and jobs, fighting crime, prison reform, immigration, defense, Middle East peace, and battling the coronavirus. He alleged Democrat-led cities and states have kept businesses and schools closed not primarily to protect public health, but to sabotage economic recovery and sway the election.
Polls – whose accuracy have been questioned due to their poor performance in 2016, potential sampling bias, loaded questions, and a potential “shy Trump voter” phenomenon – show a tight race in Nevada. The most recent poll indicates a narrow Biden lead within the margin of error. The swing state awards six electoral votes to the winner. The last Republican to carry the Silver State was George W. Bush in 2004.
Among key Nevada voting groups, Trump appears to be gaining with Latinos, which make up 33% of the state, along with Black and African-Americans (12%) and non-college educated people. Biden, meanwhile, appears to be gaining with senior citizens.
USA Today, citing ad firm Kantar/CMAG, reports that the Trump and Biden campaigns have each spent $4.5 million so far in Nevada. The Trump campaign plans for $5.5 million more, the Biden campaign $2.5 million. Trump’s campaign has built an extensive on-the-ground operation going door-to-door in face-masks to turn out their voters. Democrats, other than some union outreach, are relying on ads and virtual campaigning.
Southern Nevada’s economy, arguably the most dynamic and volatile in the US, ground to a virtual standstill in March. Sin City’s 50 million visitors per year disappeared virtually overnight as the coronavirus pandemic shut down conventions, casinos, hotels, and restaurants. Unemployment skyrocketed from 3.7% in February to 34.2% in April, but has been falling as the national unemployment rate dropped to 8.4% in August. Casinos including Wynn, Encore, and Sheldon Adelson’s Palazzo-Venetian kept paying employees as they shut for eleven weeks, then re-opened in June to an over 70 percent reduction in visitors year-over-year. Small businesses with less cash have been devastated, especially with Congress failing to agree on further relief.
The state has suffered approximately 1400 coronavirus-related deaths, those who either died directly from the disease, tested positive, or were presumed to have had the disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 96% of those who died in the US suffered from at least one pre-existing condition, with an average age of about 75. Nevada officials reported last week the coronavirus has declined to its lowest rates since June, and they want to keep it that way.
Trump accuses Gov. Sisolak, who he calls a “political hack,” of discriminating against certain citizens and certain events based on their politics, violating their First Amendment right to freedom of assembly. Nevada and other Democrat-led states and cities have supported protests, often leading to riots. At the same time, these governments have maintained lockdown restrictions that cripple businesses, as well as outlawing church gatherings and peaceful political gatherings like Trump’s rallies.
The Trump campaign has also mounted a legal challenge to Nevada’s plan for mass mail-in voting, alleging a risk of wide-scale fraud like the kind that invalidated Paterson, New Jersey’s election earlier this year .
After Reno-Tahoe Airport rejected a Trump rally on Saturday night, the Trump campaign moved to Minden-Tahoe Airport 47 miles south. Instead of McCarran Airport after a 100-degree day in Las Vegas, the Trump campaign opted for a cooler spot. Xtreme Manufacturing, builder of forklifts, EZ loaders, and other heavy equipment, offered their massive building ten miles east of The Strip. Rally attendees had to sign a waiver, get their temperature taken, and were encouraged to wear masks. Nevertheless, the City of Henderson reportedly warned Xtreme of a $500 fine and threatened to suspend or revoke their business license.
Trump defended the shutdowns at the beginning of the pandemic. But now that risks and precautions are better known, he says people have the freedom to decide for themselves how to live. “We are not shutting the country again,” President Trump said. “A shutdown would destroy the lives and dreams of millions Americans.”
Gov. Sisolak called President Trump’s events “selfish and reckless.” He didn’t say that about the protests and riots, however.
“If you can join tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets, gamble in a casino, or burn down small businesses in riots,” countered Trump communications diretor Tim Murtaugh, “you can gather peacefully under the 1st Amendment to hear from the President of the United States.”
“Tell your governor to open your state!” President Trump declared to thunderous cheers.
Two weeks earlier, the Ahern Hotel near The Strip sued Gov. Sisolak for allegedly stopping a faith-based rally for President Trump on their property. At the same time, sensational media reports of coronavirus “super-spreading” at large events like South Dakota’s Sturgis bike rally appear to be erroneous, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Before the Henderson rally, Trump hosted a “Latinos for Trump” business roundtable at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino. He then attended fundraisers before heading southeast to Henderson.
This was President Trump’s first visit to Nevada since February. After the Henderson rally, he headed to another “Latinos for Trump” roundtable in Phoenix, Arizona, then to survey wildfire damage in California.