In Reno last week, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) laced up her sneakers to launch an activity Nevada Democrats have made their calling card over the last 20 years — canvassing.

“Enjoy the day, knock a lot of doors and turn out the vote,” Rosen told the crowd, advising volunteers to share their reasoning for door-knocking to leave an impression. “Don't leave any door without telling them they have to have a plan to vote.”

The next day, in Reno’s Idlewild Park, the Washoe County Republican Party held their own “Trick or Trump” voter turnout event. A woman in a witch hat set up a face painting station; plastic buckets of Halloween candy sat on top of picnic tables next to campaign yard signs and handouts calling for voters to support a voter ID measure on the ballot.

The party — and separate get-out-the-vote events hosted by Democrats two weekends before Election Day in Nevada’s most purple county, including a free barbecue food truck near Reno’s Plumas Park — are supplements to broader campaign efforts across the Silver State, the type of in-person events that experts say are an essential part of reaching voters in a critical election year.

Canvassers are ubiquitous in neighborhoods across the Las Vegas Valley and Reno. Equipped with packets of addresses to hit, they can see data about the partisan makeup of a household and union affiliation, if the canvassers are union. In an app, they can mark whether anyone answered the door and if they indicated who they would vote for. 

A broad and well-organized canvassing effort has been the critical instrument in Democrats’ electoral toolbox over several cycles. That superior ground game is why Democrats — despite tied polls, strong Republican turnout in early voting and an electorate that, given its low percentage of college-educated voters, Democratic parties in other states may have lost long ago — still believe in Nevada. 

But inundated by electoral appeals every two years, many voters are wise to it. Knocks at the door are often only met by the sounds of barking dogs; several houses sported various campaigns’ literature, sitting untouched on porches or in windows. 

The various groups that canvass for Democrats argue that there’s no replacement for the personal touch of a conversation, even if it takes multiple attempts at the door or over the phone — after all, it’s what’s carried Democratic candidates over the line before. 

And there’s no substitute for someone high on the ticket, like Rosen, personally firing up the troops to do the hard work.

Whether Democrats can out-organize voter frustrations over issues like the economy, or Republicans can use their own strategies to negate some of Democrats’ ground game advantage, will be a key determinant of Tuesday’s outcomes.

The Democratic machine

A few weeks earlier in Southern Nevada, union members — including some who had traveled from California — gathered at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Henderson.

Paul Snow, a member of Teamsters Local 986, is normally a valet at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. But starting Sept. 28, he was able to take a leave of absence from his job — a stipulation of the Teamsters’ contract — to be paid to canvass on behalf of union-endorsed candidates in the Las Vegas heat. On this particular Wednesday, he and Daniel Cruz, a valet parking attendant at the Mandalay Bay, went door-knocking in the Crestwood neighborhood of Las Vegas.

2024 is far from the first rodeo for the Teamsters — or any Nevada union with a history of political engagement. 

“Harry Reid built something here in Clark County,” Snow said, referring to the late senator’s eponymous machine. 

The Teamsters were knocking on doors of union members — a group that Joe Biden won in 2020 by 16 percentage points. While local labor leaders, including from the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the mighty Culinary Workers Union Local 226, have endorsed Harris and other top-of-the-ticket Democrats, former President Donald Trump has made significant inroads with rank-and-file members across the country, especially among Teamsters. 

His proposal to end federal taxation of tips — first announced at a June rally in Las Vegas — is designed to appeal to those exact voters in Nevada: the highly unionized hospitality workers who form the backbone of the local economy.

The Nevada state AFL-CIO literature with which union members papered neighborhoods focused on economic issues, highlighting Democrats’ votes for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that has brought thousands of union jobs to Nevada, allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs and efforts to take on price-gouging. 

In the presidential race, it includes Harris’ support for a domestic workers’ bill of rights and votes to save workers’ pensions. And it warns members about Project 2025, the right-wing policy document created by former Trump officials that proposed gutting the right to collectively bargain, eliminating overtime pay and ending public sector unions. 

“As far as the undecided voter, I stay away from a lot of social issues,” Snow said. “My issue is getting across pro-labor candidates.”

Across canvassing experiences, the opportunity to have in-person conversations can be hard to come by. Most doors go unanswered — of the dozens of doors he knocked, Snow spoke to two people that afternoon in person. 

One, a progressive who had wanted to vote for Jill Stein but said he would vote for Harris now that Stein is off the ballot, said his top issue was the war in Gaza. Another, an older woman, talked to Snow for 15 minutes about her concerns over crime and homelessness in the neighborhood and U.S. foreign policy, but ultimately did not commit to either presidential candidate.

If they get no answer, Snow said the canvassers will return to the same house up to three times. A house with an inaccessible entryway will get a call from phone bankers; in Las Vegas, with most union members working at casino properties on non-traditional schedules, predicting when people will be home can be a crapshoot.

An afternoon with Culinary Union canvassers yielded similar results.

The hospitality workers union is peerless in the door-knocking operation, with the group planning to knock on 900,000 doors this cycle in a state where about 1.4 million people voted four years ago.

Across more than one hour in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, Culinary canvassers Norma Torres, who works at Mandalay Bay, and New York New York employee Hector Medina knocked on dozens of doors, but only a few people answered. 

They said success is a mixed bag, often dependent on things out of their control, such as whether people are home. One man initially joked that he would not be voting in the election, but later conceded that he would be supporting Harris. He filled out a Culinary postcard that will be mailed back to him as a reminder to vote.

Sylwia, a nursing home employee who did not disclose her last name, declined to talk with the canvassers but spoke with The Indy. A Polish immigrant, she was planning to vote for Stein until she was removed from the ballot. She said she would vote early for another third-party candidate after supporting Biden in 2020 — she can’t bring herself to vote for Trump but also doesn’t trust Harris.

“You have to think about how you're gonna feel about it,” Sylwia said.

But canvassers said those conversations — rare though they may be — and the opportunity to leave campaign literature provides Democrats with a valuable leg up. Ever-present each October since Reid built his famed political machine in Nevada, union canvassers have been the bedrock of Democrats’ impressive ground game. Republicans have struggled to catch up; Snow said in his weeks of door-knocking throughout Las Vegas, he had only encountered one Republican canvasser, working on behalf of Brown, in the field. 

Being out in the field every day gives the canvassers a unique perspective on the narratives dominating the election. Nevada polls have identified an increased presence of split ticket voters and an increasing rightward drift among Latino voters. 

Snow said he’s seen both phenomena. He’s encountered voters who plan to vote for both Trump and Rosen. 

And among Latino voters, he said he’s particularly worried about men, who he finds are more Trump-curious. When he engages with them, he points out that vice presidential candidate JD Vance is opposed to federal legislation that would guarantee the right to organize and notes that some Trump-appointed judges are opposed to the National Labor Relations Board and have weakened labor protections.

Snow also said that given the fraught political environment, some of the voters he interacts with are “scared to talk to labor,” particularly in mixed-partisanship households.

“My job is to get our members to see through that, and say who’s pro-labor,” Snow said.

Republican catch-up

Though less coordinated than Democratic efforts, Republicans in Nevada are trying to catch up.

In Washoe County, volunteers with Trump Force 47 — a group affiliated with the Trump campaign and the national Republican Party — were out in full force two weeks before the election, wearing red jackets and carrying clipboards.  

Trump’s campaign has also relied on volunteers with local Republican groups, the Elon Musk-backed America PAC, the LIBRE Initiative’s courting of Latino voters and the campaigns of down-ballot candidates such as Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Sam Brown.  Several Republican campaigns did not respond to The Nevada Independent’s requests to join ongoing canvassing efforts.

But that patchwork approach has drawn criticism for lacking professionalism. In Nevada, the Musk-backed America PAC, to whom the Trump campaign has outsourced much of its canvassing, hired veteran GOP operative Chris Carr — a savvy move, especially given that Carr was a key architect of the last successful Republican presidential campaign in Nevada in 2004 and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s winning effort in 2022. 

Still, the group has been dogged by grifting problems. The Guardian has reported that a quarter of door knocks by the group’s paid canvassers in Arizona and Nevada were flagged as unusual and possibly faked.

Individual volunteers, however, are keeping the faith. In Reno, Terry Fahami estimates that she’s knocked on 500 homes within the last month and a half as a volunteer for the Washoe GOP. An Iranian immigrant, Fahami said her experience of losing freedoms in Iran and desire to elect a strong world leader as reasons for favoring Trump. 

Another counterpart of hers, Washoe County Republican Party member Carole Cebrian, said her focus is on turnout, rather than changing voters’ minds. She said as part of the volunteer efforts, she’s developed a broader community and met candidates, including Brown, who kicked off a canvass event where she volunteered.

Although she’s focused on registered Republican and nonpartisan voters, Cebrian said Democrats appear to be visiting homes regardless of the resident’s party affiliation. She said she’s gotten calls from Republicans asking how to dissuade Democrats from knocking on their doors and suggested they put a Trump campaign sign in their yard. 

Democratic canvassers, however, say they’re undeterred — particularly because they have data allowing them to see the partisan affiliation of any household. A house with a Trump sign might still have a registered Democrat inside; besides, canvassers say, it’s an opportunity to encourage Trump voters to choose Democrats further down the ballot.

Some Republican initiatives, such as the “Trick or Trump” event, are also trying to cast a wider net. Bud Broomhead, a member of the Washoe County GOP Central Committee who spoke to The Indy while testing out the ideal ratio of water to face paint, described the event as an “experiment” designed to engage with non-Republican voters.

“This isn't about necessarily getting out our base. It's about building relationships in the community for this election and future elections,” Broomhead said. “One way to do that is to socialize a little bit, have some fun and do something for the kids and the whole family.”

It didn’t work on everyone. Amy Hernandez, who lives across the street, thought about bringing her two young daughters but stopped when she saw the Trump campaign signs hung around the pavilion.

“This could be a family event, but then you're making it something more,” Hernandez said. “I don't like how they're making a Trump event with trick-or-treating. Why are they involving the kids?”

She placed a blue and white sign promoting Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in front of the large skeleton in her yard. 

Someone at the Republican event ran over to Hernandez with two bags of candy for her children. Onlookers later wondered if that effort might have earned them some goodwill.

Seven touches

In advertising, the common wisdom is that people need to see an ad seven times before they remember it.

Democratic strategist Riley Sutton, whose firm has knocked about 150,000 doors for 16 campaigns in the state, said the same policy applies to campaigns.

“Campaigns try to get that many touches, get themselves in front of voters at least that many times,” Sutton said. “Now, many campaigns can’t get anywhere close to that, but you try to get as many touches on the voters who need to vote for you as you can.”

Text messages, digital ads, mailers and door knockers may be perceived by voters as annoying, but Sutton said that doesn’t mean they’re ineffective — a message he shares at the start of canvassing launches. Voters are more likely to vote for the candidates they have heard from, especially in down-ballot races where voters are less likely to have paid attention.

“There’s just no evidence to show that repeated touches loses you votes and all the evidence to suggest the opposite,” Sutton said.

One change Sutton said he’s noticed this election cycle is that the Harris campaign has encouraged down-ballot candidates to take the lead on canvassing, events and even press conferences. It’s a recognition of the trust in local officials, he said, and is a more efficient use of resources.

“It’s a different sort of level and type of engagement that I think shows their understanding of the power of local connection,” Sutton said. “Compared to previous cycles, there’s been a lot less big ticket surrogate visits and a lot more local candidate, local campaign partnering, speaking from the center type of outreach.”

The question remains, though, how much a ground game advantage matters.

If Democrats carry Nevada, they will likely point to their robust get-out-the-vote operations as a key reason why. But if they lose, it will beg the question — has the power of canvassing diminished at all?

The fruits of each group’s labor won’t be known until results come in. Either way, they’ll keep knocking through Tuesday.