12,000 pack Vegas arena as Harris-Walz ticket makes Nevada debut

Vice President Kamala Harris during a high-energy rally in Las Vegas on Saturday acknowledged the momentum of her recently launched presidential campaign but warned supporters that defeating former President Donald Trump will not be easy.

“We have 87 days until the election,” she told a packed crowd at the Thomas & Mack Center. “We know this will be a tight race until the very end.”

Saturday marked Harris’ seventh trip to Nevada this year but her first as the Democratic presidential nominee. The rally, which came roughly three weeks after President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Harris as the party’s nominee, was the final stop of a five-day, six-state tour designed to introduce swing state voters to her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

More than 12,000 people attended, according to the Harris-Walz campaign, and an estimated 4,000 people were turned away from the event by local law enforcement over concerns people were overheating while waiting to get through event security in triple-digit heat.

Walz acknowledged those who were unable to make it into the arena, saying, “Don’t worry, we’re going to be back a lot.”

Harris, Walz and their opening speakers oscillated between grave warnings that personal freedoms and democracy are at stake in the election and joyous celebration of the prospect of electing the country’s first woman president.

Walz said Harris and supporters have reminded him that politics “can be about goodness.”

“It can be about smiling,” he added. “It’s hard work but we can be happy doing it. Kamala Harris has done something we should be forever grateful for. She has brought out the joy in our politics.”

For roughly an hour before the speeches began, DJ D-Nice entertained the crowd, who danced and sang while waving hundreds of signs passed out by the campaign. Scattered among the crowd were some homemade signs, including one reading “Coach Walz,” a nod to the governor’s time as a high school football coach, and “Kamala is brat,” a pop culture term of endearment popularized by Gen Z in reference to a new album by Charli XCX.

Harris in her remarks said the stakes of the 2024 election are “even higher” than they were in 2016 or 2020 because of the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that presidents have criminal immunity for actions taken while in office.

“Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution should never again stand behind the seal of the United States,” she said to uproarious applause. Harris was referring to a declaration Trump made on social media in 2022.

Harris criticized Trump for derailing a bipartisan immigration reform package and tied him to Project 2025, a sprawling 922-page plan crafted by a right-wing think tank to dramatically expand presidential powers and restructure the federal government. Included in the blueprint are proposals that would decimate worker rights and public unions, revive efforts to bury nuclear waste in Southern Nevada, and rollback progress on LGBTQ+ rights.

“I keep saying, I can’t believe they put that in writing,” added Harris.

Walz in his remarks cautioned that “when someone draws up a blueprint, they plan on using it.”

Harris contrasted her professional background with Trump, saying as attorney general she prosecuted predatory for-profit universities while Trump ran one, and as a prosecutor specialized in sexual abuse cases while Trump was found liable for sexual abuse.

Walz leaned into the national trend he started of labeling the policies being pushed by Trump and his allies as “weird.”

“We don’t have to agree with them or make the same choices, but we know (in) this nation things work best when you mind your own damn business,” he said. “I don’t need any help from those guys telling me what books to read. I sure as heck don’t need any lecture about morality from those guys. And the last ‘they can mind their own damn business’ is: I don’t need any help from them talking about my family.”

Walz and his wife had their daughter, Hope, after years of fertility treatment and in vitro fertilization. Because it involves embryos, IVF has been impacted by strict anti-abortion laws passed in some states following the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Walz highlighted Harris’ commitment to protecting reproductive freedom, passing common-sense gun laws, and further reforming federal student loan programs.

“I know very clearly that I am preaching to the choir,” Walz told the crowd, “but hear my words for you: The choir needs to sing.”

Recent polling has suggested Harris is now leading Trump in some key swing states and remains neck-and-neck in others. The Trump campaign has suggested the enthusiasm will not last through Election Day this November.

“Let’s not pay too much attention to the polls,” Harris told the crowd at one point, “because we have some hard work ahead of us. But we like hard work.”

Nevada Democrats show support

Harris and Walz were joined at their rally by all five of Nevada’s Congressional Democrats.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto called Harris a “a good friend” and spoke of their collaboration as attorneys general of neighboring states. Cortez Masto was Nevada AG from 2007 to 2015, and Harris was California AG from 2011 to 2017. Both women left the positions after being elected to the U.S. Senate.

According to media reports, Cortez Masto was among the people Harris consulted with on her vice presidential pick.

Cortez Masto reminded the crowd she won reelection in 2022 by less than 1% of votes. That win helped Democrats maintain the slimmest of majorities in the U.S. Senate.

“It’s a reminder that every vote counts,” she added.

Sen. Jacky Rosen is facing a challenge from Republican Sam Brown. The heavily watched race is expected to be close and may be pivotal in deciding which party controls the chamber.

U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, who is up for reelection in a competitive district, accused Trump of wanting to raise the age for accessing Social Security and cut benefits by 30%.

Afterward, she led the crowd in a chant of, “That’s not just weird. That’s just wrong.”

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who is up for reelection this year in a district that leans blue, took a lighter tone on stage, calling herself “one of the childless cat ladies” that Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance disparaged in 2021 remarks on Fox News. Those remarks — in which Vance said the county was being run by a Democratic party made up of “corporate oligarchs” and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made” — resurfaced after the senator was announced as Trump’s running mate last month.

Titus joked that Vance had apologized to cats but not to her.

“You’d better hide behind that sofa,” she added, “because we’re coming for you.”

The reference to a sofa was likely a jab related to a viral internet joke-turned-rumor that claimed Vance in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” had written about having sex with a couch.

Walz made a similar zinger about Vance and a couch during an earlier rally in Pennsylvania but did not repeat the joke during the Nevada rally.

Titus noted she sat alongside Walz on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard.

A day before the rally, the Culinary union announced its endorsement of the Harris-Walz ticket. Both candidates acknowledged the union on stage. The union is seen as a vital organizing powerhouse for Democrats.

Harris during her speech said she would support raising the minimum wage and ending taxation on tips. Trump during a June rally at Sunset Park in Las Vegas said he would end taxation of tips. Rosen and Cortez Masto have both signed onto bipartisan legislation to end taxation on tips.

Tillie Torres, an English teacher at Mater Academy in Las Vegas, spoke on stage about receiving student loan forgiveness through the Biden-Harris administration. Torres said her approximately $40,000 in student loans ballooned while she was dealing with having cancer and caring for her injured husband. She said she owed $87,000 on her 30-year-old loans when she qualified for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

The PSLF program predates the current presidential administration but was cumbersome and underused. The Biden administration reformed the program, leading to an estimated 793,000 people receiving $56.8 billion in forgiveness, as of earlier this year.

Torres credited her daughter, state Assemblywoman Selena Torres, for telling her about the loan forgiveness program, which she added provided her “financial freedom for the first time.”

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and X.