Why is Trump’s toxicity not causing a landslide for Democrats in Nevada?

Kurzweil · 2016-10-23T10:38:09+00:00

ASSUMING that her opponent fails to recover, Hillary Clinton can reach the White House even without Nevada, which polls suggest is in her grasp. Yet Nevada could hardly matter more to her. To achieve much as president Mrs Clinton will need a Democratic majority in the Senate, and her party’s path to retaking the Senate runs through Nevada, one of a few states that will decide the majority. And as in other swing states, its Senate race is on a knife-edge, thanks to a Republican candidate running ahead of Donald Trump. Nevada’s contest carries a special charge because Democrats are defending the seat of their Senate leader, Harry Reid, a whisper-voiced partisan who is retiring, and who hand-picked his successor, Catherine Cortez Masto. The two main candidates are not obviously nasty people. The granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant, Ms Cortez Masto is a cautious, hardworking former state attorney-general, who was known for crossing party lines and would be the first Latina in the Senate. Her Republican opponent, Joe Heck, is a cautious, hardworking congressman, doctor and brigadier-general in the Army Reserve: “When America is Fighting for Its Future…Send a Soldier” proclaims the Heck campaign, touting images of their man wielding a stethoscope and looking masterful in camouflage fatigues. On paper, demographic changes favour the Democrat (Mr Obama won Nevada twice). The state has been transformed from a cows-cactus-and-casinos backwater into the third-most-urbanised state in the country. More than 28% of its residents are now Hispanic, and they are strikingly young. Add a fast-growing Asian community and sizeable black population, and whites of European descent will lose majority status by the decade’s end, a seismic event that will occur in America as a whole by mid-century. For a Democratic Party increasingly reliant on urban, non-white and young voters, Nevada looks a cheering vision of the future. Strength on paper can be deceiving, though. Strip out non-citizens and minors, and fewer than half of Nevada’s Hispanics are eligible to vote. Moreover, Nevada’s non-whites are on average younger than their white neighbours, and less educated—both of which predict low turnout. And when the electorate is much smaller than usual, as happened in the mid-terms of 2014, Democrats get thumped: high conservative turnout in “the rurals”, as the state’s vast hinterland is known, and in such swing districts as Washoe County around the northern city of Reno, swamps the Reid machine that mobilises casino workers and union members in Las Vegas. In 2016, there are other reasons why Mr Trump’s toxicity is not causing a landslide for Democrats in Nevada. Compared with battleground states such as Colorado, Pennsylvania or Virginia, Nevada has fewer of the suburban college graduates who have abandoned Mr Trump in such numbers, notes David Damore of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. As for youth turnout, a Democratic event this week at the University of Nevada, Reno, watched by Lexington drew just six students, though it featured free pizza and a pep-talk by a visiting senator, Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Many classmates are uninspired by either Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump, sighed Oscar Carballo, an undergraduate who did show up: “Honestly, I think turnout will be low.” Republicans have their own woes. Dr Heck broke with Mr Trump earlier this month, after recordings emerged of the nominee boasting about groping women. Citing his “military code of honour” and his experiences treating women victims of sexual assault, the doctor has called for Mr Trump to quit the race. At the Washoe County Republican Party in Reno, the chairman, Roger Edwards, stopped assembling Trump lawn signs to report that members are “pissed off” at Dr Heck, who is “kind of a RINO”—using the acronym for Republicans In Name Only, a jibe hurled at politicians who occasionally compromise to secure larger goals. Mr Edwards hopes Republicans will think of the Senate majority and back Dr Heck anyway: “We have to hold our nose and pull the handle.” Yet at a Democratic office a few miles away, Dr Heck’s conversion earned him no credit with Mr Reid. Leaning on a silver-topped cane, the leader of the Senate’s Democratic minority murmured that Dr Heck is “a Trumpite who has been voting with Tea Party folks to close the government”. Don’t ever play with guns Both parties should ponder the effects of an estimated $80m spent by groups from out of state on Nevada’s Senate race, dwarfing spending by the candidates. Mr Damore argues that, with so many negative TV ads aired by outside groups, “the candidates don’t have control of the message”—leaving Ms Cortez Masto and Dr Heck to emphasise their life stories, hoping some light pierces the murk. Spending by outside groups tends to nationalise races, too, forcing every candidate into familiar partisan templates. Tom Mannigel, a Republican volunteer in Reno, notes with approval how TV ads have portrayed Ms Cortez Masto as corrupt and greedy, “very similar to the way they’re painting Hillary”. Much outside spending comes from a network of donors led by two conservative industrialists and brothers, Charles and David Koch. On a crisp afternoon 22 days before the election, paid canvassers from the Libre Initiative, a Koch-supported group that promotes free markets and limited government to Hispanics, knocked on doors in a Reno suburb. Ostensibly conducting a survey, the canvassers read questions from digital tablets such as: “Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto has proven to put special interests ahead of job growth and our children’s future. This November 8th, will you be sending a message by voting against Catherine Cortez Masto for US Senate?” After several such leading questions, a sleepy Latino shift-worker in pyjamas agreed he was less likely to back her. On the left, union-funded ads have distorted Dr Heck’s views on pensions and other issues. In 2016 the poison starts at the national level and trickles down. Source: The Economist

Thread starter Kurzweil
Start date Oct 23, 2016

Kurzweil

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Why is Trump’s toxicity not causing a landslide for Democrats in Nevada?

Kurzweil

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