Nevada has been back and forth over the last few years. The Silver State voted blue in 1992 and 1996, red in 2000 and 2004, and blue again until 2020, when President Joe Biden won the state’s six electoral votes by 2.39%.
The Washington Examiner is following the key matters voters care about as they prepare to vote for the next president of the United States, including Social Security, crime, abortion, the economy, and immigration.
These concerns were chosen with the help of the Associated Press’s issues tracker. The Washington Examiner subsequently compared five of the key matters in Google Trends on a state-by-state basis, revealing which ones are most important to voters in swing-state contests.
Here, you can track how important these various concerns are to voters in Nevada on a rolling 30-day basis.
Social Security
Social Security came in as the No. 1 concern, but for Nevada voters, it’s not all about retirement. The state does, however, protect residents’ retirement income by not taxing it at the state level.
Nevada is one of the top states in the nation for identity theft, which commonly uses social security numbers to access personal information. It’s one of the fastest-growing crimes in America, with the Federal Trade Commission reporting that more people reported identity theft crimes than any other crime in 2022.
Nevada was the No.1 state for identity theft in 2018 and among the top six states in the nation in 2022. The state’s attorney general launched the Nevada Identity Theft Program and passed NRS 205.463, a law that made it illegal to use someone else’s personal information, in 2023.
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Crime
Crime statistics have been decreasing, according to reports from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. Violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault in 2023 were down 8.93% from 2022 and 14.7% from 2020. Most notably, robbery was down 20.35% from 2022, and rape was down 21.48%. Along with the declining rates, arrests for crimes have increased by 9.6% in Nevada.
Abortion
Nevada was one of the quickest states to act after Roe v. Wade was overturned. On June 28, 2022, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) signed Executive Order 2022-08, protecting medical professionals who perform abortions and the privacy of those getting the procedure. Abortion up to fetal viability at 24 weeks is protected under a 1990 referendum in Nevada, but it is on the ballot this November to enshrine the protections into the state’s constitution or refrain.
Abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy are only allowed to save the life of the mother, and parental notification is not required for minors.
Economy
It’s no surprise that a state with one of the most popular entertainment hot spots in the United States would have an excellent economy. Nevada’s lottery and casino industry came in No. 1 for gross domestic product growth, raking in $16.5 billion in 2024. Casino hotels landed at No. 4 with $11.4 billion.
Industries that greatly profited in Nevada were agriculture and retail, each with a 27% growth rate, and construction and manufacturing, which each experienced 16% growth, according to the bureaus of Labor Statistics and Economic Analysis. Educational services dropped 1.2%.
Nevada’s unemployment rates have consistently decreased since 2020, but the unemployment rate as of November 2023 was 5.4%, which is higher than the national average and the highest in the nation. However, over the last five years, its employment growth rate grew by 2.6%, which is higher than the U.S.’s growth of 1.2%. Its economy, as of 2023, was the sixth best in the nation for growth, with an overall GDP of $237.1 billion.
Immigration
Immigration concerns came in last place for Nevada voters, who rely on immigrants’ contributions to the state’s economy.
The American Immigration Council reported that 19% of Nevada’s population is foreign-born, and 12.7% of the population has at least one immigrant parent. Immigrants make up 23.6% of the state’s labor force and account for 24.8% of nurses, 17.3% of STEM workers, and 26.8% of entrepreneurs. Immigrant-owned businesses saw $1.2 billion in total business income in 2022.
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With over 600,000 immigrants in the state, their spending power amounted to $18.2 billion in 2022, with over $5 billion in taxes paid. In the same year, Immigrants also contributed $2.1 billion to social security.
The top countries of origin for immigrants in Nevada are Mexico, the Philippines, Cuba, El Salvador, and China. In 2022, 53.1% of the state’s immigrants were naturalized, 102,200 were eligible for naturalization, and 30.4% were undocumented.
