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“Donald Trump winning the presidency — I feel kind of responsible for that,” said Ashenafi Hagezom, a 27-year-old from Las Vegas who hasn’t voted in any election since becoming eligible nine years ago. Not in 2012, when young and minority voters — Mr. Hagezom’s parents are Ethiopian immigrants — showed up in record numbers to re-elect President Barack Obama. Not in 2014, when not so many showed up, and Republicans took back the Senate. And not in 2016, when Mr. Trump won the White House on a platform of white grievance and anti-immigrant spite.

That last one still stings, and it inspired Mr. Hagezom to participate in this year’s midterms. “I think I may have been registered before,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not too sure. But this is my first time actually paying attention, knowing the candidates. Doing my job as a citizen.”

Mr. Hagezom’s day job is at a Hudson News in McCarran Airport, but since May he has been on paid leave thanks to his union, the Culinary Workers Local 226, which has 57,000 members and has assembled a remarkable turnout operation in and around Las Vegas. Mr. Hagezom is one of about 250 union members canvassing for votes six days a week, knocking on doors and urging voters to the polls. The stakes couldn’t be much higher: The outcome of the extremely tight Nevada Senate race, between the Republican, Dean Heller, and the Democrat, Jacky Rosen, will be crucial in deciding which party controls the Senate.

With Election Day around the corner, Mr. Hagezom’s transformation — from nonvoter to voter — serves as a useful lesson about the dangers of political disengagement in America, where voter turnout consistently ranks near the bottom of turnout in modern democracies.