Reno boomtown and battleground

The story we're meeting while canvassing the neighborhoods of Reno, Nevada, has turned into a national story. Here's the New York Times describing this fascinating place:

These are boom times in and around Reno. Warehousing and casinos have long been the city’s main businesses, and the surge in e-commerce since the start of the pandemic has companies snapping up facilities as fast as they can be built. 

Yet Reno and the surrounding area have also seen the cost of things like housing, gas and groceries rise, making daily existence in this growing metropolis increasingly difficult for many of the people who live here...  

“Now Hiring” billboards dot Reno’s interstate and back roads. A chocolate factory was willing to pay as much as $25 an hour. A sign outside a Petco warehouse says a starting salary could be as high as $22 an hour. Hidden Valley Ranch’s plant says its starting hourly wage is $21, with other benefits including a 401(k), paid time off, and health care with dental and vision. Many retailers like Walmart are also trying to attract seasonal workers.

And yet for all the nominally "high" wages, people in Reno find that this booming economy doesn't give them enough to live on and they balance on edge, stressed and precarious.

So in this environment, Democratic U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is trying to win re-election -- and the contest is attracting national focus as the result might decide which party will control the Senate. Her opponent, Adam Laxalt, is something of a Nevada perennial candidate and a Trumpish Big Lie proponent.

More than any Senate candidate, Cortez Masto has made the Big Lie and Jan. 6 central to her campaign, running harrowing footage of the violence in TV ads and touting the support of law enforcement officials who’ve endorsed her campaign, in part because of her opponent’s recklessness. 

“Laxalt could not bring himself to show an ounce of remorse for his actions,” Cortez Masto said at an appearance last week with peace officers in Las Vegas. “It is unforgivable, and Nevada will not forget his actions.” 

... “He should know better,” Cortez Masto said in an interview Wednesday, her eyes narrowing as she discussed her opponent after a campaign stop at a Mexican restaurant in eastern Las Vegas. “But he doesn’t. And he’s leaning into this for a political extreme agenda.”

Laxalt's own relatives repudiate him as a phony, an opportunist, and an extremist.

But Cortez Masto could lose to this guy. The polls point to a cliffhanger.

A CNN/SSRS poll conducted 9/26 to 10/2 in Nevada gave Catherine Cortez Masto a +3 advantage among registered voters and -2 among likely voters.

That's why members of the hospitality union, UniteHERE, and dozens of volunteers are working, day in and day out, knocking on doors, explaining the stakes for women and for all working people. Join us.