The path to the White House this November runs through a handful of swing states, including Nevada, whose six electoral college votes will be crucial in deciding who gets the keys to the White House.
The state’s vast rural hinterlands are solidly Republican and likely to all but cancel out the primarily Democratic vote in the gambling capital Las Vegas.
The state’s final electoral color will depend on Washoe County, a long, thin strip abutting California, whose main city is Reno.
Here are some key facts about Washoe County:
– Electoral bellwether –
Nevada as a whole is finely balanced and, for the last four decades, has voted Republican and Democratic in line with the national mood, except in 2016, when the state went for Hillary Clinton, who lost to winner Donald Trump.
In 2020, Joe Biden scooped the honors in the state by a wafer-thin 33,000 votes more than Trump.
With about half a million people, Washoe is home to just 16 percent of Nevada’s population. By comparison, Clark County, which contains Las Vegas, has more than four times as many people.
But Washoe punches way above its weight.
“It ultimately decides how Nevada votes in the national elections,” political scientist Fred Lokken told AFP.
A look at the voter rolls reveals why: independents represent 30.8 percent of registered voters, compared to 31.4 percent who are Republicans and 29.8 percent who are Democrats.
Unlike their fellow Americans, however, Nevadans unhappy with the choice of Trump or Kamala Harris can simply vote “None of these candidates” — an official option on the ballot.
– Quickie divorces –
Washoe County borders the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains. Its desert expanses host the annual Burning Man festival, but most of the population is concentrated in its capital Reno.
The self-proclaimed “Biggest Little City in the World” was America’s divorce capital for much of the 20th century, with a lively procession of visitors from elsewhere in the country eager to dissolve unhappy unions with a minimum of fuss.
Splitting up may have been historically easy in Washoe. However, Nevada’s famously legal brothels would require a drive: Washoe is among a handful of counties in the state where prostitution is not allowed.
– Battery power –
Electric car giant Tesla built a gigafactory — a massive manufacturing facility for electrification and other high-tech EV technology — just outside Reno in 2014, kickstarting the green power industrial revolution in Washoe.
Panasonic and Google followed suit, and the area is now home to a booming high tech and manufacturing sector, aided by attractive tax incentives.
Tech companies, many of which relocated from high-tax California, brought with them good-paying jobs, reducing the county’s reliance on tourism.
The influx of tech workers could be changing the political complexion of Washoe.
“This workforce is primarily male and in their twenties,” said Lokken.
“If they vote, they’re more likely not to vote Republican,” he said — and “this could push us into the blue column as a state.”
– Latino vote –
The flipside of this gentrification has been the pressure it has brought to bear on some of the state’s poorer people.
The average price of a single-family home in Washoe County is now $550,000, double what it was less than a decade ago.
While Californians think it’s cheap, the rapid rise in prices has put houses out of reach for many locals.
Around a quarter of the population of Washoe are Latino, a group that suffered disproportionately from the shuttering of casinos during the Covid-19 pandemic, and who are overwhelmingly concentrated in lower paying jobs.
As in other parts of the country, persistent inflation has made life hard for those who already lived in precarious economic situations.
While Latinos in the West have traditionally voted Democratic, there are increasing signs of disenchantment with the party, at least in part because of the cost-of-living crisis.
That could be good news for Trump.
However, the Democratic Party has rock-solid support from the Culinary Union, which represents casino and hotel workers in the state, and organizes a vast door-to-door operation to get out the vote.
“Over the past 20 years, it’s been the Democrats’ most effective political weapon in Nevada,” said Lokken.
