LAS VEGAS —Even before he announced his third presidential run, Joe Biden knew Nevada could spell trouble for him.
In late March, former state Assemblywoman Lucy Flores immediately rekindled the “Creepy Joe” moniker by penning a tell-all describing how the former vice president kissed her head without permission before a 2014 campaign rally. That controversy ended up with an awkward exchange between the two, with Flores demanding an apology and Biden denying he ever acted inappropriately.
Then just a few days later in April, a Nevada County woman named Alexandra Tara Reade alleged that Biden “used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck,” when she worked for him in the 1990s. Biden’s office never directly responded to those allegations.
The shadow of those incidents aside, Biden hopes to reconnect with voters in the state this weekend as he kicks off his campaign’s “Day of Action” at a phone bank before heading to the annual Nevada State Democratic Party Brews and National Views where he’ll chat with local lawmakers.
Luckily for Biden, Flores and Reade likely won’t be in attendance at either event.
Instead, Biden, 76, will meet with Rep. Dina Titus and Nevada State Democratic Party Chair William McCurdy II, where he’ll chat with local party members and Democrats over beer and coffee.
Even when Biden enjoyed a steady double-digit lead over his other 2020 rivals in national polls, multiple surveys always indicated that Nevada Democrats were skeptical of his third White House run.
A March 31 poll by Emerson College put him in a near statistical tie with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, at 26% support versus 23%. A month and a half later, a Change Research poll showed Biden enjoying a minor bump to 29% support, with Sanders still closely behind at 24%.
No new voter surveys of the state have been released since June, and while Biden still leads the pack, the state is traditionally hard to poll, and the caucus system makes results difficult to predict, particularly as the state prepares to launch its “virtual caucus” system in time for 2020 that allows individuals to participate in the caucus via phone or Skype.
While this weekend’s visit will be Biden’s second since he announced in April, other candidates are aggressively courting local unions and kingmakers. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has nearly 30 paid staffers in the state — by far the most of any other Democrat.
Warren has also received the first endorsement from a statewide official from State Controller Catherine Byrne in May. Since then, Warren has shot up to second place in the state’s polls.
Biden, on the other hand, has only received the backing of a handful of state senators and assemblymen.
Despite reasons for concern, Biden’s relationships with local casino and real-estate developers have given him a substantial advantage among donors. A review of his second-quarter Federal Election Commission filings show $410,000 from Democrats in the state, almost eight times as much as others in the field.
