On a scorching hot day in Las Vegas, George Escarero was on a water break from knocking on doors in one of the city’s sprawling gated communities.
The gay, longtime banquet server at the Mirage, whose first language is Spanish, estimated the temperature at 105 but said, “That’s how we go, just walk and walk and walk and sweat and drink water, and if they cuss us out, kind of ignore it. We’re just there to open up, you know, so people can open up their eyes and just see it.”
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Escarero is one of an “army” of canvassers deployed by the Culinary Workers Union in Nevada and was adamant that “it’s time for a big change.”
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“Instead of taking stuff away and making the rich richer,” Escarero shared from his pitch, “Kamala is there to help out, and she knows what we’re going through because she was one of us.”
“Kamala Harris was middle class, like all of us,” he said. “She was a hard worker, started from the bottom, worked her way up. They cannot, like, say, ‘Well, you know what, Kamala, you got juiced in.’ No, she worked from the bottom.”
Escarero said his experience meeting with voters was “probably like 50% are really nice, and 50%” the ones who cuss him out.
Culinary Union George Escarero, banquet server at The Mirage, canvasses on a hot summer day in Las Vegas. | Culinary Union
Those numbers track with election polls in Nevada, which show an electorate evenly divided between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump supporters in a swing state that could determine the outcome of a dead-heat presidential election.
Nevadans have an unpredictable history at the polls. Out of the last 12 national elections, the state split six to six voting for a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate, while the margin for Democrats has narrowed in every election since Obama won in 2008. President Joe Biden carried the state by just 2 points in 2020.
While Democrats hold majorities in the State House and Senate, Nevadans chose conservative Republican Joe Lombardo for governor over Democratic incumbent Sisolak in 2022. However, U.S. Sen. Jackie Rosen, a Democrat running for her second term this year, holds a narrow lead over Trump-endorsed Republican Sam Brown.
Adding to the voter volatility: an electorate where unaffiliated voters outnumber both Democrats and Republicans in the state.
In 2018, Nevada voters approved a new Automatic Voter Registration system, mandating the Department of Motor Vehicles register new voters or those with lapsed party registration as “unaffiliated” unless they opt out or choose a party.
AVR created 142,484 new Nevada voters in 2020; less than a third chose to call themselves Democrats or Republicans.
It’s a new, mostly young pool of voters open to persuasion and put off by the status quo, said Nevada state Rep. Cecelia González (D), who identifies as queer and bisexual and is running for a second term in the Nevada Assembly.
“Younger voters and people of color really feel alienated by this two-party system, and they really connect with candidates that meet voters on a more personal level, right?” she said. “The shift reflects a growing frustration with traditional party politics and a desire for candidates who speak to the real issues, and not just these partisan talking points.”
The 32-year-old, of Mexican and Thai descent, says she feels the same frustrations. ” Because I’m younger, that’s where I focus on to try to get out the vote.”
Cecelia González Nevada State Rep. Cecelia González (D) speaks with a student in her district in Las Vegas | Cecelia González
18 to 34 year olds make up a whopping 30% of registered voters in Nevada and are the largest block after those over 55, who are historically less persuadable but more inclined to vote than their younger peers. Less than half of the youngest cohort claim Democratic or Republican party allegiance.
While she’s running as a Democrat, González says she knows where those voters are coming from when they meet on the campaign trail.
“They identify with me not just because I’m a woman, not just because I’m Mexican or Latino or Asian. It’s the fact that I resonate with these lived experiences because I come from the same backgrounds.”
“Young people, Latinos, and Asian communities are really what’s going to get the vice president and Walz across the finish line,” she said.
As for canvassing the day we spoke, González said door-knocking was off the table.
“It’s so hot. It’s literally 114 today,” she gasped.
Even before the large influx of unaffiliated voters, party loyalty was on the decline in Nevada. The state’s libertarian “live and let live” ethos has further blurred the distinction between Democrats and Republicans.
That’s reflected in some of the most progressive LGBTQ+ policies and legislation in the country, and it’s one reason the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy group, is targeting “equality voters” in Nevada, hoping to appeal to Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters alike in their swing state efforts to get voters to the polls.
But no constituency is a monolith, including the fast-growing Latino population, whose rapid growth has helped transform Nevada into a majority-minority swing state.
The minority share of the population in Nevada rose to just over 54% with the last U.S. Census. Meanwhile, the percentage of the non-Hispanic white population in the state continues its historical decline, dropping from over 83% in 1980 to just 46.4% in 2022.
Those facts haven’t translated, however, to guaranteed loyalty to Democrats, who in years past — as defenders of civil rights and the working class — could count on Latino voters. Their once-uniform support has narrowed and fractured.
The shift is even greater among young Latino men in Nevada: 53% of male Latino voters ages 18 to 34 support Trump while just 40% support Harris. Similar numbers among Latino men ages 35 to 49 add up to a major deficit in a key constituency that could tip the election.
It’s why getting face-to-face with those voters before Election Day is the “number one priority” for both González and George Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union and lead organizer of what he proudly calls “the largest walk program in the state of Nevada.”
“They come and work for the union,” Pappageorge said of the hundreds of canvassers on leave of absence from their day and night jobs, including guest room attendants, cocktail and food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks, bartenders, and laundry and kitchen workers from the union’s membership.
“They work six days a week. They have Friday off and they’re out in the heat, getting chased by dogs and knocking on doors to turn out the vote,” he said.
The Culinary Union and its affiliates represent more than 60,000 workers in the state, with members from 178 countries. Estimates put the number of LGBTQ+ hospitality workers at one in five, and the union is one of the largest healthcare consumers in the state, with coverage provided for more than 145,000 Nevadans.
Who is elected in any election — locally, statewide, or nationally — has a direct bearing on the union’s ability to thrive, or survive.
A second Trump administration, Pappageorge said, would be “a threat to our existence.”
“This is a guy that jokes with his billionaire buddies about firing striking workers, who brags about crossing picket lines and really has a lot of promises, a lot of promises. But the problem with Trump is that he lies, and he lies a lot.”
Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union, speaks with a fellow member at a get-out-the-vote meeting in Las Vegas.
“Look, if the election was today, we think Trump would win,” Pappageorge said, “but the election is not today, and our job is to make sure that here in Las Vegas we are contesting every single vote. We’re knocking on every single door. We’re talking to every single person in that household, to union members and their family members, and we’re driving the votes.”
“When you have those kinds of conversations” with voters, Pappageorge said, “you have an opportunity to drive votes and persuade folks. And we think these votes are winnable.”
“But we’ve got to do the work,” he added. “It’s going to be extremely close.”
Escarero, the banquet worker, agreed, sharing, “I even get goosebumps. But I feel, even though it’s going to be a tight, I know she’s going to win.”
Asked what Harris’ pledge to fight for “the freedom to love who you love” meant to him, the longtime union member paused and asked, “To me?”
Then he started to cry.
“I was living the life that it wasn’t,” Escarero said through tears. “I had to fake — I had to fake who I was, and now we have a freedom. Now we can get married. No discrimination. Do the military.”
“That’s why I get very emotional, because I had a tough life, because I had to act like somebody that I wasn’t. You know what I mean?”
With people cursing and dogs chasing him, Escarero shared what kept him going through the hot days canvassing.
He remembered “a knock not too long ago” when he asked a middle-aged white woman, “‘If you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘What side are you on?’ I said, ‘Do you have a plan? Are you on the Trump side or…?”
“‘Oh no, no, no, no, honey,’” she interrupted, pointing to a small Harris-Walz sign in her car. “‘You see my sign out there in the window?’ She goes, ‘Give me a big one and I’ll put it in the front yard.’”
“Let’s fight for our rights,” Escarero said, before heading back out into the heat.
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