As the highly competitive presidential election nears its end, Vice President Kamala Harris continued her storming of battleground states in Las Vegas on Sunday, rallying thousands of attendees about her economic and immigration policies and urging them to make a plan to vote and to help. take her “underdog” candidacy over the top.

In roughly 25 minutes of remarks, Harris did not announce any new policies but sought to build support for her plans to lower the cost of living and crack down on illegal border crossings, casting herself as the only candidate in the race with proposals that would would benefit Americans. The economy and immigration consistently rank among the top issues among voters nationwide, and Harris has recently gained ground as being more trusted to tackle the issues, though persistent inflation in the wake of the pandemic often misses the Democratic message has damaged the economy.

The event took place at the World Market Center in downtown Las Vegas – the same location where former President Donald Trump gathered more than 6,000 supporters two weeks ago. Harris’ campaign offered much more space for Sunday’s rally, and more than 7,500 people attended, the campaign said.

It was Harris’ second stop in Las Vegas since President Joe Biden scrapped his re-election bid in July. She held a rally last month at the Thomas & Mack Center for more than 12,000 people, one of Nevada’s largest gatherings in modern political history. Harris also visited Nevada six times earlier this year, where he addressed President Biden.

Nevada is clearly among the battleground states that could determine the winner of the presidential election, of which Harris has repeatedly described himself as the underdog. Polls consistently show a dead heat between Harris and Trump to secure the state’s six electoral votes — a reality that left some rally attendees stunned.

“Every morning when I wake up and I see the polls saying it’s a horse race, I’m completely perplexed,” said Jay Cloetens, a 55-year-old printer technician. “Is this a parody or is this real? It’s so crazy, and yet it could go either way.”

Being here The Indies most important conclusions from Sunday’s rally.

It’s the economy, stupid

Harris spent much of her speech outlining her already announced plans to strengthen the economy.

She touted proposals to provide $50,000 in tax breaks to people who start small businesses, increase the federal child tax credit from $2,000 to $6,000 for newborns and relax college degree requirements for federal jobs.

The economy is the top priority for voters across the country, but especially in Las Vegas — a city dominated by the hospitality industry that has been ravaged by the pandemic. Nevada’s job growth since the pandemic ranks first nationally, but the state’s unemployment rate is also near the top, while inflation (which has been easing) continues to outpace wage growth, according to data presented by state economists in June.

Because child care costs have risen faster than wages, recent polling from the University of Maryland shows that more than 73 percent of Nevadans support increasing the child tax credit to $3,600 and making it fully refundable (paid out even if a family does not owe tax). , in line with the pandemic-era child tax credits that expired in 2022.

Sin City is also home to a rare source of common ground between the two candidates: a proposal to end tip taxes, which Trump first proposed in June and Harris later supported in August.

Although Harris did not mention the policy at Sunday’s rally, Jasmin Newsom, a 19-year-old student at the College of Southern Nevada who attended the event, said she supported the policy — but didn’t think it was relevant that Trump was the first to introduce it suggested.

“However, I don’t feel like this means much to us. She just cares about families in general,” Newsom said. “She didn’t grow up in an upper class like Donald Trump, so she sees us in the lower class more often.”

Helen Coombs, a 68-year-old retiree who recently enrolled in Medicare with her diabetic husband, said the Biden administration’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — which capped monthly insulin prices for Medicare recipients at $35 — was a lifeline for her family.

More housing – but what about federally owned land?

Last month, Harris unveiled her plan to combat the nation’s affordable housing crisis — which she reiterated on Sunday.

She defended her plan to build 3 million new homes nationwide and provide $25,000 in down payments to eligible first-time homebuyers.

“We need to lower the cost of living because even though our economy is doing well by many measures, prices for everyday things like groceries are still too high,” Harris said.

What’s missing from Harris’s comments, Sunday and her overall housing plan, however, is the topic of freeing up federally owned land for housing development. In Nevada, the federal government owns about 86 percent of the land, limiting its development and use, and opening up such lands has received bipartisan support from the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, and Democratic members of Congress.

Earlier this month in Las Vegas, Trump pledged to release federally owned lands, declaring those areas would have “ultra-low regulation” — a topic missing from Nevada land bills stalled in Congress — and tying the opening of the land on a promise to grow the state’s film industry, although that policy will likely be addressed at the state level, as has been proposed through tax credits.

Conservationists have argued that any constitution must adequately protect the environment, and some critics of releasing federal lands for development have called for less urban sprawl and more upward development. Developing more land also requires potentially costly infrastructure and could strain or hinder public services in the event of forest fires or other natural disasters.

The emphasis on immigration

Two days after visiting part of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and adopting tougher immigration policies, Harris largely stuck to her typical campaign rhetoric on immigration.

Harris’ new plan would go beyond the Biden administration’s crackdown on illegal border crossings, increasing criminal charges against repeat offenders and requiring asylum claims at ports of entry.

Before becoming vice president, she championed much looser immigration enforcement policies — such as decriminalizing illegal border crossings — but polls show voters trust Trump more than they do on immigration. If elected, Trump has promised to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in American history.

At Sunday’s rally, Harris reiterated policies intended to appease multiple wings of the Democratic Party, calling for a path to citizenship for people brought to the U.S. illegally as children, while also attacking Trump for torpedoing of bipartisan legislation that would have given the Biden administration the authority. to “close” the border – or stop processing most asylum applications – if the number of encounters with migrants reaches a certain threshold.

Rally attendee Michelle Waters, 61, was particularly outspoken about Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, which has increased in recent weeks, repeating the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets.

“We’re all immigrants, right? We all came from somewhere,” Waters said. “His wife is an immigrant. The entire United States is made up of immigrants.”

Appealing to Latinos

Addressing Latinos specifically, Harris said that “Latino small business owners are the fastest growing segment of our economy” and promised to leverage their “aspirational aspirations” and dreams through a $50,000 tax deduction for those who start a new start a business.

It marked the campaign’s approach to winning over Latino voters, a crucial and growing voting bloc in Nevada. The Harris campaign’s appeals included ads targeting Spanish- and English-speaking Latino voters in swing states, including Nevada. The policy and community-focused ads touch on topics such as public safety, the economy, immigration and health care, without explicitly describing Latinos as a vital voting bloc.

A Telemundo A poll released Sunday showed Harris with a 14 percentage point lead among Latinos nationwide, a significant erosion in support from four years ago. A UnidosUS survey found Harris with a 23 percent lead over Trump among Nevada Latinos, although that is still lower than Biden’s 2020 margin of victory.

Noe Quintero, the son of Mexican immigrants and a Clark County fire chief, introduced Harris. Sometimes speaking in Spanish, he told a story about himself as a father, husband and middle-class worker, emphasizing his hopes for reproductive freedom and better health care for his daughter, who has a genetic condition that affects her brain and development.

He made an economic case for supporting Harris.

“I want my children to live in a country (where) you don’t have to work multiple jobs to put food on the table,” Quintero said. “Vice President Harris puts everyday, working, middle-class families first – families like mine, families like yours. She will fight to lower costs and create union jobs that my community depends on.”

Reporter Tabitha Mueller contributed to this article.