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Sunday, May 10, 2026

Trump's visit to small Nevada town highlights importance of rural voters to state Republicans - CNN

CNN —

When former President Donald Trump touches down in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday to campaign for a slate of Republican candidates, he will be landing in a town of just under 3,500 people – about 0.1% of the state’s population.

It’s a tiny stop for the former President, who rode stronger-than-expected turnout in rural stretches of the country like Minden to the White House in 2016. But it highlights just how important rural counties are to Nevada Republicans such as Senate nominee Adam Laxalt and gubernatorial hopeful Joe Lombardo in the critical midterm elections.

“We believe that rural Nevada is the key to turning our state back,” Laxalt said during a stop late last year in Winnemucca, a mining town of under 8,000 people in northern Humboldt County.

Nevada, which Trump lost twice, represents one of the biggest tests for Democratic power in the 2022 midterms. The party holds all but one statewide office in Nevada, and Democratic presidential nominees have carried the state in every election since 2008, buoyed by the strength of the late Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid’s so-called Reid Machine. But those Democratic margins have been declining and after closures around the coronavirus pandemic dramatically affected Nevada’s tourism-centric economy, Republicans see a strong chance to make gains in the state, hanging their hopes on Lombardo’s bid to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak and Laxalt’s challenge to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

A CNN poll...



Read Full Story: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/08/politics/nevada-republicans-rural-voters-trump...