We begin with elections.

With the primaries behind us, we look to the general election, where U.S.

Senator and Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen will face Republican Army veteran Sam Brown.

Meanwhile, all incumbents in Nevada's Congressional races won their primaries, meaning U.S. Representative and Democratic incumbent Dina Titus will face Republican and retired U.S. Army Colonel Mark Robertson in District 1.

In District 2, U.S. Representative and Republican incumbent Mark Amodei will face Independent Greg Kidd, since no Democrats ran in that primary.

In District 3, U.S. Representative and Democratic incumbent Susie Lee will face Republican Drew Johnson.

He's a policy analyst.

And in District 4, U.S. Representative and Democratic incumbent Steven Horsford will face Republican and former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee.

And finally, in the race for Las Vegas mayor, former U.S. Representative Shelly Berkley is set to face Las Vegas City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman in November.

Joining us now to provide insight into these races and more is David Damore, Executive Director of the Lincy Institute and Brookings Mountain West and a political science professor at UNLV.

David, welcome.

You have followed Nevada politics closely for how many years?

(David Damore) I moved here in 2000, so quite a while.

[laughter] -So then of the primary results of what's going to happen in the general election, what stands out to you in Nevada?

-I think this sort of lack of surprises was the thing that stood out to me.

I mean, it seemed that all the people who were expected to move forward did.

On the other hand, you have a lot of open races, particularly in the state legislature, which you know will, regardless of the outcomes in November, will lead to a lot of new people coming to Carson City there.

So that was the thing that stood out to me.

You have at the top the ticket, obviously, Sam Brown, speculation about was he winning, was he not.

No.

He crushed it.

So that was fairly straightforward there.

And then as we work down the federal races, you have a rematch in District 1.

District 3, which has traditionally been very competitive, it's unclear how competitive that will be come November.

And I think the most interesting one is, of course, District 4, where you're going to have Steven Horsford against John Lee.

They formally served together as Democrats in the state legislature about a decade ago, and then Horsford has been back in that seat for a while.

We saw Lee switch party, run for governor, not do particularly well in the Republican primary, and now he's going to win that seat as a Republican.

I think that's an interesting race just to follow, given the dynamics there.

-Them knowing each other for so long.

How did the funding for these races compare between what was put into the Senate race versus the House races?

-I mean, you had the Senate race was a nationalized race, right?

You had very early the Republican establishment in Nevada, but more importantly in DC, targeting Sam Brown's our guy.

So that money's going to flow to them and also then tend to choke off money to other people.

So that makes it harder to-- for them to fundraise.

They saw a lot of those candidates tipping the toe, I'm going to put my own money in, and then maybe not so much there.

So that, I think that was the sort of telltale sign.

And then late on Sunday, the President, former President Trump, endorses him.

Not much of a difference maker there in terms of the outcome there, but just sort of shows that the entire establishment Republican Party was behind Sam Brown.

-What about how well they funded the House races, and I'm talking about Republicans.

-Yeah, that's tricky, right?

I think this has been an underwhelming cycle for recruitment for Republicans.

And, you know, traditionally, those seats have been very competitive-- -In Nevada?

-In Nevada.

Those have been often to attract some of the highest levels of spending.

And outside, you've already seen some of the super PACs suggesting they're not going to play on the Republican side in Nevada House races here.

So that's going to create an interesting dynamic.

A lot of money coming in for the Presidential race.

A lot of money will come for the Senate race, but it's unclear how much money will be there for the House races.

-Would that be because they don't find it-- -They don't find it particularly competitive there, particularly compelling candidates.

You know, last in 2022, you had good opportunities in all those districts and what was probably a little more favorable environment for Republicans, and they lost all those seats.

-Okay.

At last check, about 16% of Nevada's 2 million active registered voters participated in this primary.

What does that indicate about the participation come November?

-I think you got to divorce the two, right?

I mean, there wasn't, you know, outside of the Senate race, that was the only sort of statewide race of interest that would sort of draw attention to that.

You know, the Democrats didn't necessarily have to campaign.

The incumbents put much effort into their primaries there.

And then, of course, as we know, the Nonpartisans don't have much incentive to go, right, outside of voting for your judges and your school board races and your regents.

-I'm glad you brought that up, because that is the argument that some people are making in favor of Ballot Question 3, which would implement open primaries and ranked-choice voting.

Open primaries would allow those Nonpartisans to finally participate.

There are more Nonpartisans in Nevada than there are Democrats and then there are Republicans.

Is that a legit argument for the approval of this ballot measure?

-I mean, it is in the sense that two things going on there to sort of get people out engaged in the process there, and that, of course, is going to sort of determine the types of campaigns we'll see.

If you have to focus on your party base, that's going to be one type of campaign.

If a broader electorate you have to appeal to in the primary, that's a different set of messaging.

Makes your race probably more expensive there.

But one of the arguments for the open primary is just something too much polarization in politics, that all these candidates have to do is, in a low turnout election and, particularly, in a safe Republican or safe Democratic district, you appeal to that base of your party and, you know, you win your election in November.

And that, I think, is the major driver for this, not just in Nevada, but we're seeing this across the country.

-In Nevada, though, it appears that there has been some significant funding from out-of-state donors, a lot more than in other states, other races.

What do you attribute this to?

And that's a reason that opponents say you need to be wary of this because of all those out-of-state funders.

-I think Nevada is attractive for a lot of out-of-state groups, right?

You have essentially two media markets, you get 90% of the population.

So you don't, you know, it's very concentrated population.

They're less expensive than some of the other larger states to essentially run a campaign here.

We've seen this, you know, going back to recreational use of marijuana, right?

That came from outside the state.

We've seen some of these other initiatives that have been pushed have come from from outside the state.

So it's not that uncommon here.

What I think is interesting about the dynamic of Question 3 is, do we see an opposition campaign emerge?

Because this is essentially the parties and their allies-- organized labor on the Democratic side, business groups and other interest groups-- they're going to oppose this.

Do they work together to try to defeat this come November, or do they have bigger priorities in terms of the candidate races there?

-That's what's so fascinating about this is that there is opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.

And then in favor of it, there is, there are funders that are Democrats and Republicans as well.

-Yeah.

That's an interesting dynamic, again.

We're going to-- it'll be a fairly crowded ballot initiative for us.

We often don't get a lot of attention and that compared to California or some of the other western states, but you have potential for interesting ballot questions this time around.

-Let's move now to the race for President.

Former President Donald Trump chose Las Vegas as the site of his first rally post-conviction.

His campaign held the rally at Sunset Park, where one of his supporters told us that the guilty verdict for falsifying business records only served to further motivate her to vote for Trump.

The issues top of mind for her and other supporters that we spoke with were inflation, immigration, and foreign policy.

-To redo the economy and get us back to where incomes can equal the inflation.

And inflation rates are up whatever number, arbitrary numbers, to 20%, 22% --food, gas, energy-- but people's incomes are going up 2% a year, 3% a year.

-I feel like the biggest problem for me is the borders.

Like I really-- and the money that's being spent on other countries instead of our own country.

And so that's really been a thing for me, because we have had so much crime and so much homeless.

I live specifically in a neighborhood where there's homeless people everywhere camping out.

-I really appreciate how he tries to put America first, rather than playing politics.

So it's not about politics.

Put America first.

Make sure that American's interests are kept instead of just focusing on how to make politics work.

-Make things more affordable, like easier to buy like a house, easier just to live in general.

Right now, everything is super high.

And, yeah, so you would just have to be really smart with your money, because with interest rates and, like, all that stuff is pretty crazy right now.

So it's hard to, it's hard to live.

-That last guy, his name was Steve.

This will be his first election he gets to vote in.

So let's start with that inflation issue.

How much of an impact can a President really have on bringing it down?

-It's really tricky, right, because we're an interconnected global economy here, right?

We saw that during COVID with the supply chain issues there.

If you look at the policy choice the Presidents make, there's only a couple of them, who you appoint to the Federal Reserve.

But the Federal Reserve is independent.

They set the rates.

There's been a lot of pressure to lower them.

They've been sort of saying, Well, maybe we will; maybe we won't.

We saw Canada recently did lower theirs.

So that's, maybe that sort of tips the iceberg a little bit here.

The other is how much money you put out there.

And I think that the criticism you're going to hear of the President's policy is he's put too much money out into the economy coming out of COVID.

-COVID relief.

-Also, you know, IIJA, IRA, some of the big legislation has also put a lot of money out there.

But this is nothing unique to U.S.

If you look globally, this is occurring, right?

All of our trading partners are dealing with inflation as well.

So, you know, this is, also, you know, it, the inflation affects people differently depending upon their income, right?

So if you are at the top of the, sort of, income ladder, right, it's a little bit of a nuisance, but you're able still to sort of make ends meet, not worry too much about it.

You've probably gotten raises as well.

Whereas, if you're in the lower parts, in the middle part of the income distribution, it's going to hit you much harder.

Every time you grocery store, you see prices going up or so much higher than you're used to expecting.

Gas is sort of fluctuated down a little bit now, but it's four-- $4 is now sort of the norm, right, in Southern Nevada; whereas, it used to be $3.

So those sort of things.

And of course, once you get your electricity bill or your gas bill, those have gone up as well.

So there is this sort of interesting moment in our economy where the macro signals are all very good.

The stock market is doing well.

But for the person, the average person in Nevada, they're not seeing it.

I think that's one thing.

I think for the Republicans, they want to make this a referendum on the economy.

That's what they want to do coming November.

-When some argue that President Biden put too much money into the economy, which caused inflation, we should acknowledge that former President Trump approved COVID funding as well.

-Yeah.

I mean, we've been under-- the federal government's been on a spending bender since about 2020 on this.

At the same time, you've reduced taxes as well.

The taxes put in early in Trump's administration will expire come 2025.

But right now, right, you're running huge deficits as well, which would make driving up the cost of borrowing for the federal government.

-Okay.

So at the Las Vegas rally, former President Trump appealed to workers in Nevada's large hospitality sector who rely on tips.

Let's listen to them, and then I'll have you respond.

-So this is the first time I've said this.

And for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you're going to be very happy, because when I get to Office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips.

[cheers and applause] We're not going to do it, and we're going to do that right away, first thing in Office, because it's been a point of contention for years and years.

-Real quick, this is how the culinary union responded, in part, quote, Relief is definitely needed for tip earners, but Nevada workers are smart enough to know the difference between real solutions and wild campaign promises from a convicted felon, end quote.

The campaign promise, could former President Trump actually pull that off?

-It'd be really tough to do.

He can't do it unilaterally.

This would require legislation from Congress.

As I mentioned a moment ago that the current tax policy is going, set to expire in 2025.

You're going to have a feeding frenzy of lobbyists trying to ensure that their, that their, their constituents and their groups get beneficial treatment in there.

So how much, how organized are tipped workers going to be in that competition for, essentially, favorable treatment in the tax code there?

You know, usually what you would see if the campaign was serious about this idea is they would have a briefing paper they would roll out, right?

This is the number of Nevadan families who would be impacted favorably by this, right?

You would have a press conference with affected people being, This is a great policy.

We didn't see any of that there.

So putting, putting that aside, the other part of this is once you reduce the tax burden on some people, you're increasing it on everybody else.

So everybody else who has all income reported to the, to the IRS is going to be paying, shouldering a bigger part of the tax burden there.

The other part here is that there has been long negotiations over tip compliance policies that are implemented across and, you know, across sectors here that rely on tips here.

So you would be undoing all of that.

So it would be a heavy sort of regulatory lift.

But at the end of day, it has to come through Congress.

-About the border, where you heard plenty of voters at the rally talk about their concern about immigration and some of the crime that is associated with it, how big of an issue is this to Nevada voters?

Can you give us any context on now versus past elections?

-Nevada is an interesting case in the immigration because certainly you do have a hard core conservative anti-immigrant component of the Nevada electorate.

Even in the Latino electorate you see that as well.

But if we sort of look in Nevada, Nevada has a high share what we call "mixed families."

That is families that some people may be residents, some are not.

And then you look at our economy, you look at construction, some of the trades, some of the restaurants, some of that is really dependent on a lot of immigrant labor that may or may not be authorized here.

So it doesn't play the same way, I think, in the border states than it does here.

Certainly it appeals to a segment of the electorate here, but I don't think it resonates quite so loudly.

Historically, when we've done polling on this, it seems to be much more in favor of more liberalizing immigration laws, pathways to citizenship and those kinds of ideas have resonated a lot in Nevada.

-As opposed to the signs that we saw there that said "Deport them all."