Las Vegas may be America’s playground but for those who live and work in Sin City, high costs make life difficult, and that single issue will be decisive when they vote for a new US president in November.
But who will make things better for people who serve the drinks, wait the tables and deal the cards? Odds are dead even in Nevada, a key battleground where Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are running neck-and-neck.
For Sally Uribe, a 40-year-old waitress who once made hundreds of dollars a night working in a casino, there is no doubt.
“When Trump was president, I only worked 40 hours a week, if that,” Uribe said after an early morning shift serving drinks to gamblers.
Now, the single mom-of-three says she has three different jobs just to make ends meet. She blames the Democrats, and believes Trump when he promises falling prices and rising wages.
“I have to pay more in interest. I have to pay more for gas. I also have to pay more for groceries. Everything just went skyrocket(ing),” she said.
Hotel worker Spencer Lindsay is meanwhile campaigning for Harris, and says voters express similar concerns.
A young would-be Trump voter complains straight away about the cost of living — a common refrain, Lindsay says, adding that most voters ask about the prices of “medication, food and gas.”
Tips and taxes
Trump and Harris are spinning the wheel of fortune in Nevada in the final frenetic weeks ahead of the November 5 election, hoping to secure the state’s six Electoral College votes.
Fivethirtyeight.com has the two dead even in its average of recent polls. The state backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Four out of 10 people in the state say the economy is the most pressing issue, according to a poll by Emerson College.
Two-thirds of Nevada’s population of 3.1 million live in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, where the leisure and hospitality sector accounts for a quarter of all jobs.
So it is no surprise that a Trump pledge to make tips tax-free, unveiled during a visit to Vegas in June and quickly matched by Harris, is of great interest.
Uribe said it’s the policy she likes most on the Republican’s platform.
As for Lindsay, a member of the 60,000-strong Culinary Union, he admits: “We do live on our tips.”
“So for any candidate or political party to really win over Nevada, yes, take taxes off tips,” he says.
Unemployment
Las Vegas came to a complete standstill during the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving thousands out of work.
The city has long since reopened, with its daily menu of huge conventions, mega-concerts, larger-than-life parties and razzmatazz-filled sports events.
But the hangover from the shutdown is proving tough to shift.
And the job market is still shaky: at 5.6 percent, unemployment in Nevada is the worst in the country, way above the national rate of 4.1 percent.
“I’ve applied in many places, but nothing,” says Gallego Perez, who became unemployed four years ago.
Perez waits in the parking lot of a hardware store to pick up odd jobs — a life that generates around $1,000 a month, barely half the state’s median rent.
He says there is no point in making an election decision based on the economy.
“How would life change for us here?” He asks.
‘It all snowballs’
Sam Mitchell, an electrician who lost his job four years ago, is acutely aware of how politics matters.
Mitchell, who panhandles at traffic lights, says he had worked his whole life when suddenly the ground shifted.
“All it takes is one day, two days of being late, which is really easy to do on the bus” and you lose your job, he says. “Then it all snowballs.”
Mitchell identified as a Republican in the past and saw Trump as a “good businessman.”
“I was pretty conservative,” he said.
“I believed in the whole idea of ‘the government should leave us alone and let us do our own thing’. And I tell you what — that bit me in the ass, because now I really need them.”
For many of the Nevada voters AFP spoke to, the economy is the most pressing issue.
But for Bianca Garziola, the result is less important than the money she can make from the election itself.
“At the end of the day, everything’s going to turn out the same,” she said as she showed off political t-shirts at a store she manages.
“But in the shirt business, Trump is winning the election,” she said.
“Everything with Trump on it sells.”