In the Democrats’ arsenal, it is a weapon that weighs heavily: in Nevada, a multitude of maids, cooks and bartenders are preparing to support Joe Biden against Donald Trump, in this key state for the presidential election American.
In Las Vegas and the rest of this region of the American West, the “Culinary Union”, a union of casino and hotel employees with 60,000 members, is an institution.
Its striking force allowed Hillary Clinton then Joe Biden to win Nevada by a hair against Trump, in 2016 then 2020.
“By the time of the election, we will have 500 union members (…) full time to knock on doors, register people to vote, take them to the polling station,” Ted Pappageorge, the secretary and treasurer of the organization. “We have to get people to vote, there is no other way to win.”
Nevada is one of a handful of states capable of swinging the November election. Three-quarters of the population of this desert region live in Las Vegas, an essential campaign stop.
Mme Clinton visited there frequently in 2016 to court union members in the back rooms of casinos. It’s one of the few key states she won, despite losing the White House.
Mr. Biden also beat Donald Trump there four years later, with only 33,000 votes ahead.
Heavy weights
For this new campaign, the 81-year-old Democrat and his vice-president Kamala Harris have already made several trips to the state in recent months, notably to support the “Culinary Union”, which has just obtained significant salary increases for his members.
Because the organization is a political heavyweight in Nevada.
The union has the ear of a very diverse population: 60% of its members are Latino and 55% are women. And he has a massive canvassing machine, capable of knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors in a state of three million people.
“We play a fairly important role,” recognizes Mr. Pappageorge.
This year again, the organization is raising funds to pay hundreds of workers who will interrupt their regular jobs to preach the good word.
“They commit for three to six months during the election year. They roam the neighborhoods every day, 10 hours a day, in 40 degree heat,” summarizes the secretary of the organization. “Workers talking to workers: this is how we advance the working class vote.”
The union has tripled in size since the late 1980s. The wage gains it negotiated have moved Nevada’s hotel and restaurant workers into the middle class where their counterparts in the rest of the United States has a much lower standard of living.
Each election, the Culinary Union lines up behind a pro-union candidate, and has sometimes supported Republicans.
Biden, “best president”
Currently, the organization is firmly behind Joe Biden.
He is the “best president for workers, families and unions that I have seen in my life,” insists Mr. Pappageorge.
Facing the rural counties of Nevada, historically conservative, the union will crisscross Las Vegas and Reno. These cities attract a younger and more ethnically diverse electorate, often tempted to abstain.
“The participation rate is essential in Nevada,” recalls Mr. Pappageorge. “That’s where the Culinary Union comes in.”
But this year, the slope is steep. For the first time, voters registered as independents outnumber Democrats in Nevada.
Mr. Trump appears to have a narrow lead in the state, according to polls. Latino and African-American voters, who largely supported Biden in 2020, now seem less allergic to the Republican billionaire.
“It is still early. We are not too worried,” says Mr. Pappageorge.
His union intends to highlight the defense of the right to abortion carried out by the Biden administration, and its balanced management of immigration, far from the incendiary rhetoric of Mr. Trump.
But the economy remains the thorn in the president’s side: Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and the cost of living and real estate there have exploded.
Although he boasts of having recovered the American economy since the pandemic, Joe Biden is indeed up against the ever-present price inflation.
Compared to previous elections, “it will be even closer,” admits Mr. Pappageorge.
