Trump is dominating get-out-the-vote push in key state of Nevada

In one of the midterms' political hotbeds, Republicans and Democrats are testing the limits of using Trump as a motivating force for voters who might otherwise sit the election out. Candidates in the state's competitive House, Senate and governor's races are all trying to galvanize their bases in the middle of a crucial week of early voting by touting their support, or opposition, to Trump's agenda and style.

With control of both chambers of Congress on the line, Nevada is a must-win for Democrats. Two House races in the Las Vegas area, both currently in Democratic hands, are vital in the battle for control of the House.

Sen. Dean Heller is the most endangered Republican incumbent in the Senate -- and the Democratic Party's already unlikely path to a majority would be closed if its candidate, Rep. Jacky Rosen, loses that race. A CNN poll released Wednesday shows just three points separate Rosen and Heller, 48% to 45%.

In the aftermath of a week that included pipe bombs being mailed to political figures and a synagogue shooting, Democrats say the country needs to heal in divisive times -- but can't do so with Trump unchecked.

Voters, Rosen said, "want the President to be a healer, to not be pmaking fun of people, to not be calling people names and not be trying to divide people through hate and fear."

There are early indications the strategy of using Trump as a motivator is working. Both parties are turning out early voters at higher rates than previous midterm elections.

For the GOP, those turnout efforts have been squarely focused on the pro-Trump base -- a strategy that was on display when, during a recent event in Elko, Heller told Trump that "everything you touch turns to gold."

In recent days, two of the star surrogates in Nevada were senators who emerged as leading voices for their parties during the contentious confirmation for Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. South Carolina's Lindsey Graham's ferocious defense of Kavanaugh helped the judge regain momentum with Republicans after Christine Blasey Ford's sexual assault allegation and Hawaii's Mazie Hirono was perhaps the most outspoken Democratic opponent of Kavanaugh.

And with just a week left before election day, GOP House candidate Danny Tarkanian was across the country at a Florida fundraiser with Roger Stone, the notorious operative who was one of Trump's earliest political allies.

In recent days, Trump's cavalry has fanned across the state.

Graham -- riding his own newfound GOP stardom as a fierce Trump ally -- bragged in Henderson last week that it only took "like five minutes" to get Heller to commit to voting for Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation.

Over the weekend at rallies in Las Vegas and Carson City, Vice President Mike Pence predicted that Democratic momentum in the midterms is "going to hit a red wall right here in Nevada."

Eric and Lara Trump visited the Las Vegas area on Monday. Donald Trump Jr. is due in the state Friday with former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle.

"You support Cresent Hardy, he'll support President Trump," Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald told supporters of the congressional candidate at an event in Summerlin on Monday.

"If you want to say thank you to Donald Trump, vote red," Lara Trump said there.

Attempting to turn out their own base, Democrats are treating the election as a referendum on Trump, too.

"This feels like a presidential election. The excitement feels like a presidential election," said Nevada Democratic Party chairman William McCurdy.

Central to Democrats' hopes for higher turnout this year: anti-Trump backlash.

In Washington, Trump has rage-tweeted his usual early morning attacks on news media and hyped a clash at the border between a group of migrants still 900 miles away.

Those tweets typically come in what's still the middle of the night in Nevada, leading politicians and campaigns to wake up already in the middle of new controversies most days.

In an interview after he kicked off a night of phone banking Monday, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Sisolak painted a picture of a country descending into chaos under Trump -- including the mass shooting in Las Vegas last October, attacks on journalists, "women disrespected and our minorities' rights getting trampled," shootings during religious services, bombs being mailed to politicians and "babies ripped from parents' arms" at the border.

"This is not who we are as a people, as a country," Sisolak said. "This is just way too much hate."

Nevada is among a series of states -- mostly in the Sun Belt -- where Democrats hope younger, more diverse populations will eventually solidify what had once been swing states like Nevada and Colorado as blue strongholds and turn formerly red states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas competitive.

But for Nevada's key races to match 2016's outcomes, when Democrats won the presidential and Senate contests in the state, the party must avoid the usual drop-off in Latino turnout in midterm elections.

It's been a major focus of Democratic organizing efforts in Clark County -- the home of Las Vegas and by far Nevada's biggest population center -- where groups like the Culinary Workers Union, which represents hundreds of thousands of casino workers, and the Service Employees International Union have geared their canvassing efforts to reach that population. Democrats have also pointed to Nelson Araujo, the son of Salvadoran refugees who is running for secretary of state, as an effective messenger to Latino voters.

"We have been going into the hearts of all of our communities, the Latino community, and having conversations in Spanish," Araujo said after an SEIU Local 1107 canvass launch Monday. "Meeting folks who are getting ready to shop and reminding them that they can also vote conveniently, and calling them right before they have dinner, and saying, 'Hey listen, these issues are important to the Latino community, take it from someone who is Latino, the son of an immigrant who cleans hotel rooms right now for a living.'"

Hirono and Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards campaigned in Las Vegas on Monday for Rosen as well as the party's nominees in two area House races, Steven Horsford, who faces Cresent Hardy, and Susie Lee, who faces Tarkanian.

Those Democratic candidates have focused their messages on health care -- pointing to the GOP's efforts to repeal Obamacare in a state that made dramatic increases in insurance coverage after its passage -- and on Trump.

Throughout Rosen's campaign, she has pointed to Heller's comment before the 2016 election that he was 99% opposed to Trump's candidacy.

"Now he is all in for the President," she said Monday. "What I'm seeing is people are coming out -- they understand what Dean Heller has done, that he has flipped."

Horsford emphasized placing a check on Trump's power in Washington, where Republicans currently control all the levers of power.

"What voters in my district are talking about is getting a Congress that's going to do its job and hold this administration accountable," he said.

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