In the February run-up to the Nevada caucus, Joe Biden and the other Democratic primary candidates battled to win the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Union, which has organized the state’s casino industry. (The union ultimately did not endorse, and Bernie Sanders won the caucus.) Less than two months later, the unemployment rate for the union’s members was close to 100%. Geoconda Argüello-Kline, the union’s secretary-treasurer, says the presidential election is now framed in relentlessly practical terms: The refusal of Republicans to deal with the pandemic and the economic crisis show that only Biden can make the government support workplace safety legislation, protect health insurance and pensions, and fund adequate unemployment benefits until Las Vegas is back on its feet.
“The government really has to provide everything that the workers need during this pandemic,” Argüello-Kline says. Her union is adapting its legendary get-out-the-vote machine for a socially distanced era, relying on phone banking, text messaging and digital communication more than door-knocking and rallies. She’s confident that Trump will not carry Nevada. “Everybody in the country sees how he’s being oppressive to minorities over here. How he’s attacking the Latino community. How he doesn’t want to have anybody in this country who doesn’t look like him,” she says. “We know workers never have an easy road.”