LAS VEGAS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris vowed Saturday to work to eliminate taxes on tips paid to restaurant workers and other service workers, following up on a pledge made by her opponent in November, Donald Trump, creating a rare example of political overlap from both sides .
Harris made the announcement during a meeting on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where the economy relies heavily on the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries. Trump promised essentially the same thing at his own rally in the city in June — though neither he nor Harris are likely to be able to fully deliver. without congressional action.
“It is my promise to everyone here that when I am president, we will continue our fight for working families in America,” Harris said. “Including raising the minimum wage and eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
Trump responded a short time later on his social media site, posting that Harris “just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS policy.”
“The difference is she won’t do it, she only wants it for political purposes!” the former president wrote. “This was a TRUMP idea. She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”
Harris and her running mate, the governor of Minnesota. Tim Walz came to Nevada as the final stop of a battlefield blitz in which their party has shown new energy after President Joe Biden left the race and endorsed Harris. On Sunday, the vice president will hold a fundraiser in San Francisco that has already raised more than $12 million, her campaign said, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among those scheduled to speak.
There were more than 12,000 people in the campus basketball arena on Saturday and before the event started, local law enforcement opted to close the event’s doors because people were getting sick while waiting outside to go through security in the heat of 109 degrees. About 4,000 people were in line when the entrances were closed.
Walz referenced that during his speech, but turned it into an applause line by adding Nevada, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back often.”
As part of the trip, Harris hopes to build more support among Latino voters. In 2020, Biden narrowly defeated the Republican Trump by 2.4 percentage points in Nevada. Trump, the former president, tried to build more support in a state dependent on the service sector with his own previous promise to employee tips are tax-free.
But the union representing 60,000 workers in that sector, the Culinary Workers Union, announced its support for Harris. About 54% of the union’s members are Latino, 55% women and 60% immigrants.
“The road to victory runs through Nevada,” the union said in a statement, “and the Culinary Union will deliver Nevada for President Kamala Harris and Vice President Tim Walz.”
Harris made her pledge to eliminate the tip tax as part of a broader call to strengthen the country’s middle class, tapping into a theme central to Biden’s now-defunct re-election bid.
“We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for American families so they have an opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead,” she said.
AP VoteCast found in 2020 that 14% of Nevada voters were Hispanic, while Biden won 54% of their votes. His margin among Hispanic voters was slightly better nationally, a sign that Democrats cannot take this bloc of voters for granted.
“There is an incredible energy here among the students and community members who come together to support and listen to our next president, Kamala Harris,” said Imer Cespedes-Alvarado, 21. Cespedes-Alvarado is studying political science at UNLV and is a first. generation American citizen who spent his childhood in Costa Rica before making the difficult decision at age 16 to return to the U.S. alone for better opportunities.
The vice president also pledged to “address the issue of immigration,” leaning heavily on the issue as she did the night before at a rally in Arizona.
“We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it will take to fix it,” Harris told the crowd at UNLV. She also supported an “earned path to citizenship” for some people in the country illegally and denounced Trump, who she said “talks a big game about border security but doesn’t walk the walk.”
The vice president has sought to go on the political offensive in recent weeks on an issue that Trump and top Republicans have often used to condemn her and the Biden administration. By doing this, Harris hopes to drive a wedge with Republicans.
Because the vice president’s portfolio in the Biden administration included addressing the root causes of migration, and because of some of her comments before the 2020 election, many leading Republican Party voices have sought to portray her as weak on the southern border and to enable illegal immigration.
Trump himself has said of Harris: “As border czar, she is the worst border czar in history, in the history of the world.”
The former president proposed mass deportations if he returns to the White House, but AP VoteCast found in 2020 that nearly seven in 10 Nevada voters said immigrants living in the United States illegally should be given the opportunity to gain legal status to request.
Still, policy aside, many rallygoers in Las Vegas said they were thrilled with the new energy Harris and Walz have brought to the race.
Krista Hall, 60, and her husband Thaddeus Hager, 58, said they haven’t been excited about an election since President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
“This is just as electric, if not more so,” Hall said, noting that they attended several Obama rallies at the time. Hager said he is confident Harris and Walz “will win in a landslide.”
Last week’s Democratic ticket also visited the crucial “blue wall” states of the Midwest, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Together with Nevada and Arizona, these states represent 61 electoral votes that could be essential to reaching the 270 threshold needed to win on Election Day.
In Nevada’s rural Douglas County, near the California border, Gail Scott, 71, is a member of the local Democratic Party’s central committee and said she initially disagreed with calls for Biden to quit the race. Trump won the county in 2016 and 2020, but narrowing his margins there could reduce his ability to compete in Nevada.
Scott said it’s impossible to miss the energy Harris has created among younger voters who could help statewide.
“Young people are embracing Kamala Harris and the enthusiasm and joy she brings to the campaign,” she said.
Brian Shaw, a Republican from northern Nevada, said Harris’ emergence as the winner could make it harder for Trump to win because Biden was a “pathetic candidate” and there is little time to address the “incompetence” of the to expose the vice president. He said he attended Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s July 30 rally in Reno and found him “likable, competent, polished as a politician, but not veneered.”
Weissert and Bo reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.