| New reporting from Bloomberg highlights what Southern Nevadans have been feeling for the past year: “higher costs for groceries, healthcare, housing, and gas.”
The report is also flashing warning signs for out-of-touch Marty O’Donnell, who has whole-heartedly backed Republicans’ cost-spiking agenda. One GOP strategist even admitted that O’Donnell would “have to run a nearly flawless campaign” (too late) with “improvements in… the national economic trends to help get him over the top.”
While Southern Nevadans reel from Las Vegas’ “Trump Slump,” Nevadans know they can count on bipartisan problem solver Susie Lee, who’s laser focused on lowering costs, protecting jobs, and strengthening No Tax on Tips to actually put more money in more workers’ pockets.
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“Marty O’Donnell is wildly out of touch with the reality Nevadans are facing: tanking tourism, higher costs, and fewer jobs. As Southern Nevada families continue to sour on O’Donnell amid Las Vegas’ ‘Trump Slump,’ voters are poised to re-elect proven fighter Susie Lee in November.”
Bloomberg: Trump’s No Tax on Tips Gamble Risks Falling Short With Disgruntled Vegas Voters
Higher prices and tourism declines are blunting the financial impact of the president’s tax relief.
- Like many schemes cooked up on the Las Vegas Strip, Trump’s luck may be running out.
- The city took a hit in the first year of Trump’s term with a sharp drop in tourism, blunting the financial impact of the president’s tax relief. Many said new deductions for tips, overtime and seniors boosted tax refunds, but higher costs for groceries, healthcare, housing and gas gobbled up those extra savings.
- The results in Nevada could have an outsized impact this fall, when Democrats will look to overturn the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the US House of Representatives. The outcome will determine whether Trump is able to push legislative priorities through Congress for the second half of his term, or whether his administration will spend it mired in oversight and investigations.
- Nevada Democrats have seized on these broader economic anxieties as well as the decline in Las Vegas tourism as they look to defend three seats, rated as competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
- Prices have jumped in recent months thanks to Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran, driving up the costs of fertilizer and fuel. And while his sweeping tariff regime hasn’t proved as inflationary as some economists had predicted, it has contributed to higher prices — while angering foreign tourists.
- Visits from Canada — the top source of international tourists, who tend to stay longer and spend more — were down 17.4% last year. Overall, visits to the city dropped 7.5%, the sharpest annual drop outside of the pandemic since the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority started tracking the data in 1970. Hotel occupancy hovered just above 80% last year, the lowest rate since 1991, outside of the pandemic.
- Robert Uithoven, a GOP political strategist and partner at Axiom Strategies who worked with Lee’s opponent last cycle, said “national economic headwinds” were lengthening the odds of flipping the Democrats’ districts, even with the new tax breaks.
- But while Lee calls no-tax-on-tips policy “a good thing,” she’s seeking to define the race as a referendum on cost of living more broadly.
- “When people have less in disposable income, they travel less,” she said. “They come to Vegas less.”
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