Battle rages in Las Vegas for Nevada’s working-class voters – BBC.com

As the sun sets over Las Vegas, Nicole Williams gets to work serving drinks behind the bar of a luxury hotel on the city’s infamous street.

But life is far from luxurious for Ms. Williams, 45, and other service-sector workers who form the quiet backbone of Vegas’ booming economy.

“When you’re shopping for a big family like mine, it’s hard here,” she told the BBC as she shopped for groceries and took children on dates in the city.

The mother of seven children, ranging in age from 10 months to 16 years, said she is often afraid of bending under the weight of the economy.

From skyrocketing grocery prices to gas, Ms Williams said she had to cut back on holidays as well as soccer and gymnastics lessons for her children, which would have forced her to stretch the family’s already tight budget.

“We haven’t been able to do the things we want,” she said. “I want a future for my children.”

She is not alone. In dozens of interviews with Lasvegans who work in vital local industries from construction and casinos to restaurants and bars, low-wage workers from across the political spectrum told the BBC that the problems at the kitchen table – particularly unaffordable housing and expensive childcare – were , which will determine how they vote on November 5.

It is these voters who are hoping to win over Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in Nevada, a hotly contested battleground state where the two remain neck-and-neck in the polls.

To woo low-wage workers, Harris and Trump have laid out starkly different economic visions, including competing anti-poverty policies that could help shape the financial security of millions of families.

But victory in volatile Nevada — one of the key states that will determine who becomes the next president — will be won by only a small fraction of undecided voters there, politicians say.

The data shows that about a third of voters in the state consider themselves independent, and an August New York Times/Siena poll of likely voters found a slight majority of independent voters leaning Republican (43%) compared to those who lean Democratic (39%).

“Nevada is not a blue state,” said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of Culinary Union Local 226, referring to the traditional Democratic Party color (Republicans are red).

The politically powerful group backed Harris.

“We’re hardly purple. If the election happened right now, we think Trump wins,” he added.

Despite booming businesses, Nevada’s unemployment rate was the highest in the nation at 5.6 percent in September. In Las Vegas, home to three-quarters of the population, the figure is even higher at 5.9%.

The state has also been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with unemployment rising to about 30 percent — which Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Monroe-Moreno described as a sign that “when the country gets a cold, Nevada gets the flu.”

As the U.S. economy recovers, however, Trump and Harris are pursuing different economic policies to ease some of the burdens on low-income workers. Harris has promised to expand many of the Covid-era policies that President Joe Biden pursued when he took office in 2021, including health and housing subsidies and reviving the $6,000 enhanced tax credit for child care.

Trump has pushed through the idea of ​​renewing the 2017 tax cuts – which are set to expire next year – while imposing sweeping tariffs on foreign imports that he says will reduce poverty and spur economic growth.

“Five dollars is no longer $5, $100 barely gets you groceries,” said Fermin Gonzalez, an unemployed, Mexican-born former restaurant worker living in Las Vegas.

At 60, he fears he will have difficulty finding work again. “We could make money here. People are unhappy.”

To try to win over voters who feel the same way, both parties rely on the door-to-door campaign of allied voting groups.

The Culinary Union — the state’s largest union that represents a variety of occupations in the hospitality and food service industries — has dozens of teams knocking on doors to drum up support for Harris and other Democratic candidates.

On a September afternoon, two members walked for hours in 40C (104F) heat in a modest neighborhood in North Las Vegas near the edge of town, where the city gives way to desert and rocky hills.

“Things are very difficult. We feel it a lot,” said Olga Mexia, a Mexican immigrant and mother of five who works as a housekeeper at the Signature Hotel on the strip.

“They pay us a lot less for everything. [Four years ago,] the rent was less, the groceries were less.”

“I had to hold two jobs at one point to make it work. I am campaigning for my family. At least Harris has a real plan,” Ms. Mexia added, taking shelter from the sun under a tree as her teammate knocked on the door. “That’s what people want to talk about.”

One economic proposal where both candidates overlap is eliminating tip taxes, a concept that has found a receptive audience among Nevada’s service workers, more than half of whom are Latino.

More broadly, Latinos make up about 30 percent of the state’s population, along with 19 percent of business owners. Given how close the election will be in the state — and nationally — both parties increasingly see mobilizing Latino voters as key to their victory.

Ms Williams, the barmaid – who says she is “100% voting for Trump” – makes $20 an hour but said tips make up her main income, bringing in up to $250 on a good night. But even when she uses coupons, looks for bargains and plans a weekly menu, it’s not enough.

Trump first floated the idea at a rally in Las Vegas in June. In August, he highlighted the plan again during a stop at a Mexican-Italian fusion restaurant located on the city’s west side.

The restaurant is owned by Javier Barajas, a Mexican immigrant who first crossed into the US illegally in 1978 and ended up in Las Vegas almost by accident after being separated from his traveling companions.

Once a dishwasher, Mr. Barajas is now an integral part of the community and owns a string of popular Mexican restaurants that employ a predominantly Hispanic workforce of more than 500 people.

“My waiters make $12 – minimum wage. I’m not saying it because it’s a lot. It’s hard. Every time they go to the gas station, they spend $100,” he told the BBC, switching between English and Spanish in the corner of his restaurant.

Mr. Barajas, an outspoken Trump supporter, says he believes ending the tip tax will greatly help his workers with day-to-day expenses while having a minimal impact on him as an owner.

“This idea is interesting for people like them,” he said of his workers. “I totally understand why.”

Harris endorsed the no-tax-on-tips policy at her own rally in Las Vegas in August, though in her case it was coupled with raising the federal minimum wage to $15.

Experts have warned that cutting tip taxes could have minimal benefits for the U.S. economy as a whole, and the Tax Foundation has estimated that any change could cost at least $107 billion. Any change must also be passed by Congress.

For many working-class Lasvegans, inflation and rent pressures are compounded by childcare concerns.

Child care in Nevada is more expensive than anywhere else in the U.S., with the average family spending nearly $26,000 a year on it — more than a third of the median annual income, according to a July report by the state’s Office of Innovation the workforce.

Harris campaigned on a promise that child care costs would be capped at 7 percent of family income, along with a $6,000 child tax credit. So far, Trump has offered no concrete plans, although his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has proposed raising the child tax credit to $5,000 from the current $2,000. Vance missed a vote in August on a failed Senate bill that would have expanded the child tax credit for low-income families.

Among those feeling the pinch is Dominique Richmond, a 50-year-old single grandmother who cares for four young children with special needs – aged one, four, six and nine – as well as a mother with dementia who lives nearby.

Ms. Richards lives in a small two-bedroom apartment that costs her $1,600 a month. Despite working part-time as a broker – a job she said “leaves no money” – and 16 hours a week at an airline, she said the combined costs of childcare, rent and high prices had left her in dire straits. situation.

“When you put it all together, it’s like a hurricane,” she said, wiping away tears in the offices of the Children’s Cabinet, a local nonprofit. “I’m the only one doing all this. You cannot function in a “me only” society.

Once a week, Ms Richards heads to a crowded food bank, which she says now mostly hands out military-style self-heating packs – which usually include a small main course, crackers or cheese, dessert and a powdered drink – to help with nutrition her family. She reluctantly asks acquaintances for help – mostly to no avail.

Ms Richards says she is “not a political person” – she just wants a candidate who will help families like hers.

“I’m just hoping that when November comes around, we’ll see somebody start helping out where help is needed,” she said. “By the end of this year, I’ll probably be homeless. I’ve exhausted everything I can handle.”