For the last seven months, Frankie Perez has been collecting paperwork, scheduling appointments and taking every needed step to return to the Air National Guard.

Perez, 38, had previously served four years in active duty before leaving in 2015. While he served six years as a reservist, his goal was always to return to active duty.

He is scheduled to take his physical examination as a precursor to returning to service later this month. But, Perez doesn’t know if President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people, like him, serving in the military will prevent him from returning to service.

“I started all of this before Trump got back into the White House and before all of this happened,” Perez said. “I mean, I knew he was running. I knew what this could mean, and here we are.”

Like many trans people across the country, Perez is uncertain what his future looks like because of Trump’s escalated actions targeting the trans community.

Along with actions to prohibit trans people from military service, Trump has issued several other anti-trans orders, including one to block federal support for gender-affirming medical care to patients younger than 19 and one to ban access to restrooms in federal agencies.

“I was wondering if my recruiter was gonna send me a text to say ‘don’t go,’ but she hasn’t, ” Perez said. “From a legal standpoint, I’ve reached out to somebody who’s in the military that’s actually a lawyer. I may want to fight back if I get a hard no.”

The State Department is no longer issuing U.S. passports with “X” gender markers while the White House has required pronouns be removed from email signatures.

RockAthena Brittain, who is trans, said the moves by the Trump administration are setting the stage “in the public’s mind and in the legal discourse” that paints a picture that “transgender people are dangerous criminals and destroying lives.”

In his most recent action, Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to ban trans people from playing sports that align with their gender identity.

“Where do we go if we have no place in public or private life?” she said. “It sounds like death to me.”

Trans people and LGBTQ+ serving groups in Nevada said these recent actions have created a lot of fear and unease in the community.

Some say the lack of response from Democratic elected officials to the assault on trans rights is also troubling.

Brittain, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2024 in a Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, said she is “disgusted by the so-called Democratic leadership” for not doing more amid growing anti-trans rhetoric.

Democrats, she said, aren’t willing to stand up for the trans community while trans people are “being stripped of our lives.”

“Obviously I’m disgusted with MAGA,” she said.

But Brittain is also disturbed by members of her own party “turning their backs” and pretending it’s fine for trans people to be “collateral damage” out of convenience.

“I don’t think that these democrats on any level are willing to stand up and actually sacrifice themselves for the people that they are supposed to represent,” Brittain said.

‘People are really scared’

Since Trump won the presidency, AJ Huth, director of public affairs and civic engagement for the LGBTQ Center in Las Vegas, said they have received non-stop calls and emails from the community.

“People are really scared,” Huth said. “There is this extra vigilance we all have now.”

Andre Wade, the Nevada director for Silver State Equality, said he’s not surprised by the pace of Trump’s actions against the LGBTQ+ community, specifically the trans community,

“It’s spelled out in Project 2025,” Wade said of the ultra-conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that Trump has been using to draft orders and actions.

The playbook, originally drafted by the Heritage Foundation, outlines numerous anti-LGBTQ policies.

“Trump and the MAGA folks have been signaling they are going to be going this route,” he said. “These orders really point to an attempt to erase trans people and gender-diverse people at the federal level through policy and programs that have been in place.”

These executive orders at their core, Wade said, defines “who the Trump administration thinks are rightful Americans.”

But the orders, in particular the effort to ban trans people from the military, puts America “at a greater risk.”

“With the recent confirmation of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, our national security is in a more precarious position than ever,” he said. “We are also greatly disturbed by the sheer amount of animus present in the executive order—President Trump seems to relish belittling and harassing members of the transgender community.”

Many of Trump’s orders have faced legal challenges that have delayed implementation.

Even if they aren’t able to be fully enforced, Wade said they will still be detrimental to the trans community.

The orders would have “a huge impact on people’s mental health, their sense of safety, their well being and security in knowing they too are part of the American dream,” he said. “We are part of the American dream. We are part of the American fabric.”

Huth said the attacks, while scary, aren’t anything new.

The LGBTQ community in general, she said, has “been the political football for the last 30 years.”

“We’ve made a lot of progress and we know how to fight,” she said. “We know how to keep ourselves safe.”

Huth said she tried to be optimistic at first since the state has passed laws enhancing protections around gender identity and sexual orientation.

In 2023, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed several trans protections, including preventing insurance companies from discriminating against trans people on the basis of gender identity..

“At the beginning I was optimistic because Nevada is awesome,” Huth said. “We have some awesome protections so let’s hang in there and take it one day at a time because we’re going to be OK.”

Huth has been unable to figure out if Nevada’s protections could offer some protections to the trans community from the Trump administration’s multiple orders..

“I’ve asked that question to a bunch of people and nobody really knows the answer,” Huth said.

As actions keep rolling out, Huth said she has spoken to “a lot of people in our community who feel very betrayed right now” by some of the Democratic elected officials’ response, or lack thereof.

Huth said she’s beginning to lose confidence in Democratic members of Congress, including those from Nevada.

“People who have been elected who have historically been more progressive Democrats are kind of giving in…That’s a concern. I don’t really understand it.”

Huth declined to name particular elected officials who are undermining her optimism.

Brittain doesn’t share much of the optimism to begin with.

She said she has talked to other trans people who have told her they are optimistic and “hoping for the best.”

But at the same time, “There’s a lot of people in the trans community in this state who are scared to death, who don’t share that hope, who don’t know what to do, because they don’t have enough information or resources,” Brittain said.

Brittain thinks it might be time to leave the state.

“Nevada is not going to protect my family,” she said.

But the question is, if Nevada isn’t safe, where is?

‘We need them to stay in the game’

Five days before Trump’s inauguration, the Republican-controlled House voted 218-206 to pass legislation banning trans girls from competing in women’s sports. The bill hasn’t been taken up in the Senate.

Nevada’s entire Democratic House delegation voted against it.

While Lee said the bill was an overreach, in a statement last month she said “I do not support transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports when fairness or safety is compromised.”

“While I believe governing athletic bodies, like the NCAA, have been slow and inconsistent in updating their policies, the answer is not for the U.S. Congress to institute a nationwide ban for all ages,” Lee said in her statement. “This is an extremely complicated issue that requires very serious deliberation and updated rulemaking by appropriate governing athletic bodies to address the portion of athletics where fairness or safety is an issue.”

Nevada Current sent Lee questions about her statement, including if she would support another version of a legislation restricting trans from sports, and how she plans to address the attacks against the trans community in general.

Her office declined to answer.

The Current also sent Reps. Steven Horsford and Dina Titus questions about how they plan to respond to actions targeting the transgender community.

In an email, Dick Cooper, a spokesman for Titus, said she “always has and always will stand up for the rights of transgender people.” Cooper also pointed to bill Titus has supported, the GLOBE Act, that seeks to protect LGBTQ+ rights internationally.

“Congressman Horsford is focused on defending his constituents, especially those most vulnerable to Trump’s attacks like the trans community,” his office said in an email.

Horsford also cosponsored the Ensuring Military Readiness Not Discrimination Act, which “prohibit all forms of discrimination in our Armed Services, including actions targeting trans individuals.”

Huth urged Democrats to “keep fighting for all of us” and not abandon the trans community.

“Don’t think, ‘oh, we can take a break and be a little transphobic but we don’t have to be homophobic,” Huth said. “It doesn’t work like that. We need them to stay in the game.”

‘One day at a time’

Perez was already serving in the Air Force National Guard when he came out as trans.

“I told folks in my squadron right away, and they were very supportive. It was a small adjustment, but we made it happen.”

While he decided to request an early exit from active duty in 2015 due to personal and family issues, Perez always hoped to return.

Since then, Perez has started a family, went back to school and began organizing with Make the Road Nevada.

Trump signed an executive action banning trans people during his first term preventing Perez from returning to the Guard.

By the time President Joe Biden took office and reversed the ban, Perez was a new father.

The call to return to active duty still weighed on Perez. In early 2024, he decided to take steps to return.

Perez is determined to serve. He said the reason he wants to join the Nevada Air National Guard is to be able to help Nevadans specifically in the face of an emergency.

Huth said the Center is monitoring safety and funding issues at other centers across the country but hasn’t faced in particular threats to either so far.

“As far as the Center goes, we are going to continue to give great primary care and continue to do testing and offer pharmacy services so people can get the medicines they need,” Huth said. “We are going to keep going and take it one day at a time.”

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.

As votes have yet to be tabulated, former President Donald Trump already declared he had a sizable lead in Nevada and claimed he was ahead in states “never typically in play” including New Hampshire at a campaign stop in Southern Nevada Thursday night.

Trump spoke at the UNLV Thomas & Mack Center a day after his running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, also campaigned in the state.

Numerous polls indicate the difference in support between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is well within the margin of error – the race is tied – in Nevada and other every other battleground state.

But in Las Vegas Thursday, Trump said “we are leading by a lot in Nevada,” in addition to all the other battleground states.

He also claimed that “other states, big states are all in play” and pledged to win solidly blue Colorado after the state sought to disqualify him from the primary ballot. The United States Supreme Court reversed the decision.

Polling in Colorado over roughly the last month has shown Harris leading Trump by between 10 and 17 percentage points.

Trump has previously disparaged early voting and made false claims about mail-in ballots leading to voter fraud. But on Thursday, he encouraged the crowd to vote early to ensure they not only win, but with a significant turnout.

“If we’re leading by a lot, they won’t think about cheating as much,” Trump said, leaning into baseless allegations of election fraud. “We have to make these elections honorable and honest and we’re going to do it.”

Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 even as he lost the popular vote, also falsely claimed he received more support that cycle and earned “millions and millions of votes” that weren’t counted.

No evidence of widespread election fraud in the 2020 election has ever been discovered despite countless investigations and dozens of court cases.

Trump peddles anti-immigrant rhetoric at Las Vegas rally

Much of Thursday’s speech reiterated the same proposals Trump has talked about over the last few months, including eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security. The Trump campaign has offered few details about the scope of those proposals, their implementation, or how they would be paid for, other than to suggest massive tariffs he plans to impose on foreign imports will provide the federal government with huge windfalls.

Multiple independent analysts and economists have warned Trump’s proposed tariffs would reignite inflation and prompt prices to surge.

Trump Thursday also briefly discussed plans to open up housing on federal land as a way to develop more housing amid a growing affordability housing crisis. Gov. Joe Lombardo has advocated for the federal government to open more land.

“Your governor is doing a great job,” Trump said. “We thank him very much. Joe Lombardo, doing a very good job.”

Lombardo was not at the rally, and has not appeared at any Trump campaign events this year.

Trump also told supporters to vote for Sam Brown, an Army veteran running against Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen.

“That man is a hero and he has given up so much,” he said, pointing Brown out in the audience.

Trump then invited not Brown, but Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, to the stage. Ramaswamy called 2024 “our 1776” and compared Trump to George Washington in an earlier speech at the event.

The largest chunk of his nearly 90-minute long speech repeated much of the same anti-immigrant rhetoric Trump offered at prior campaign visits to Nevada this year, including his most recent Las Vegas rally in September. Thursday, Trump characterized the United States as “an occupied territory” due to undocumented immigrants, and reiterated one of his chief campaign promises — mass deportations.

“Immediately upon taking the oath of office I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” he said. “I will rescue every town that has been invaded and conquered … We have a lot of towns that have not been infected but they are petrified they will be. We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty animals in jail.”

Trump claimed 29,000 people attended Thursday’s event at the Thomas & Mack Center, with another 29,000 people outside. However, Turning Point Action, the group organizing the event, said the crowd was 12,500. During his remarks, Trump said his campaign event at a closed McDonalds earlier this week, where Trump put on an apron and pretended to work the drive-thru for about 20 minutes to serve a few pre-screened people, also had 29,000 people outside.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and X.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California, along with housing organizers, is urging President Joe Biden and other congressional candidates to make the housing crisis a top priority, especially in Nevada and other presidential battleground states.

While the housing crisis isn’t new and addressing high rents has long been a priority for renters, recent polling in five battleground states, including Nevada, indicated it could energize voters this election.

“I believe a comprehensive housing agenda that speaks to rents and the difficulty that people have in getting into homes and buying homes will help us mobilize the communities we need to win this election,” Khanna said. “It will also speak to an economic contrast with Donald Trump. He is the candidate of landlords and big real estate. Our candidate, President Biden, is the one who’s going to help renters and working families.”

Khanna’s remarks were made last week during a virtual press conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy and Right to the City Action to discuss the role housing will – and could – play in elections this year.

A new poll the groups commissioned from HIT Strategies showed renters want candidates to talk about how they will address the housing crisis.

Joshua Doss, a senior research manager at HIT Strategies, said the results showed “Trump is significantly less popular” among renters in battleground states. Yet, homeowners, a demographic he has higher favorability with, are more enthusiastic about voting, Doss said.

Homeowners historically vote more heavily than renters.

The poll surveyed 500 voters in each battleground state: Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The survey was weighted to get a larger representation of renters and voters aged 18 to 35.

“As is the case with younger voters in general, (renters) are significantly less enthusiastic about the upcoming election, with only about 60% saying they would vote versus almost 80% of homeowners,” saying they will vote, he said.

Despite the high cost of housing at the top of mind for many voters, the responses showed it’s hardly being talked about compared to abortion access and immigration.

“There is a massive gap between how high of a priority the cost of rent and housing is to voters and how much they are saying they are hearing about it from the politicians in their orbit,” Doss said. “This is especially true for renters.”

Housing policy hasn’t typically been the focal point in previous election years. Even if candidates had policy positions, questions around housing weren’t common during the Democratic presidential candidate debates in 2019.

The recent poll showed that if candidates mobilized a group “who already lean Biden on favorability,” it would mean they could energize “a group that is more racially diverse and younger,” Doss said.

Biden has made moves to address the housing crisis.

In March, he traveled to Southern Nevada to announce his Fiscal Year 2025 budget request included calling for $258 billion in housing investments, which includes expanding rental assistance for low-income families, and direct $20 billion for an “innovation fund for housing expansion” to support construction of affordable multifamily units.

Biden’s proposals have received praise from national housing groups such as the National Low Income Housing Coalition. By comparison, the group was critical of Trump’s housing policies during his term, including a proposal to cut housing benefits, eliminate the national Housing Trust Fund and slash funds for tenant-based rental assistance.

Voters who were polled also want to see candidates “championing progressive solutions” like rent stabilization and support for housing choice vouchers, Doss said.

Analilia Mejia, the co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, said that while the polling only “provides a glimpse to the angst, the anxiety” renters feel, the results further confirm what organizers with the group have seen and heard when they knock on doors and engage with voters.

She added that less than six months out from “an uncomfortably close election” the polls show that if candidates bring the housing affordability crisis faced by renters to the forefront, it could sway voters.

“President Biden not only has a moral imperative to address the concerns of every single community demographic and voting bloc across this nation, but there is now a political imperative to make sure we address the concerns of the many,” Mejia said.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and Twitter.

Nevada LGBTQ+ students say they don’t feel safe talking with school staff and face discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, according to new findings from Silver State Equality.

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group recently released the results of its “2023 Nevada LGBTQ+ Student Survey and Listening Campaign” report, which collected stories from Nevada youth statewide to learn about the struggles youth are experiencing.

Nearly 80% of students who identify as LGBTQ+ reported discrimination, with transgender and gender-nonconforming students, in particular those in rural schools, saying they faced higher levels than cisgender students.

Another 56% of students don’t feel safe talking with school counselors while 42% don’t feel comfortable going to the school nurse. More than three-fifths of those surveyed reported being bullied in the last six months.

André Wade, state director for Silver State Equality, called the results from the report “heartbreaking.”

He hoped policymakers would use the findings to “develop programs and campaigns that empower the LGBTQ+ community and its allies to combat discrimination, blatant lies, hate and other divisive tactics that negatively impact our schools and LGBTQ+ students.”

“If we as adults are going to effectively advocate for LGBTQ+ youth, it is essential to learn and understand from LGBTQ+ students, themselves, what they experience every day in their school environments,” Wade said.

The call for greater resources and protections for youth come as more extremists groups are pushing school districts and state legislatures to implement harsh anti-LGBTQ+ agendas.

Wade specifically pointed to Moms for Liberty, which the Southern Poverty Law Centers identifies as a far-right, anti-government organization.

The national group has advocated against gay and trans rights, supported book bans and opposed efforts to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in schools in recent years.

It launched a chapter in Clark County last year.

Members of the group have shown up at Clark County School District board meetings to oppose protections for gender-diverse students mandated by state law.

Silver State Equality’s report also noted that nearly 40% of students indicated they didn’t have access to curriculum that was LGBTQ+ inclusive.

Lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 261 in 2021, which requires school districts to expand age-appropriate curriculum to include people from typically marginalized groups who’ve made “contributions to science, the arts and humanities.”

In addition to including the LGBTQ+ community, the bill also includes those from various racial backgrounds, immigrants or refugees, people with disabilities and those from various religious backgrounds.

The report released Tuesday also included several policy recommendations, such as investing in mental health resources for youth, especially LGBTQ+ youth, and training school staff on specifically working with LGBTQ+ youth.

As more Republican-led state legislatures have proposed and adopted anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ measures, Nevada has trended in the opposite direction in recent years.

The ACLU said it tracked 508 bills attacking LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. in 2023, with 84 of them enacted into law, including bills prohibiting gender-affirming care for trans youth and restricting LGBTQ materials in schools.

By contrast, Nevada advanced protections last year, including legislation mandating that

the Nevada Department of Corrections to adopt regulations for protecting and housing transgender inmates, and a measure requiring health insurers to provide coverage for medically necessary treatments for trans and gender-nonconforming people..

Both bills were signed into law by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Lombardo also vetoed a bill that would have prevented the governor from surrendering a person charged with a criminal violation in another state for receiving gender-affirming services in Nevada. The bill would have prohibited health care licensing boards from disqualifying or disciplining a provider for offering gender-affirming care. Lawmakers recently said they plan to reintroduce the legislation again when the legislature is next scheduled to meet in February 2025.

There is still more the state could do to advance LGBTQ+ rights, Wade said.

“While it’s true Nevada leads the nation in providing legal protections for its LGBTQ+ citizens, especially transgender youth, there are groups right here in Nevada whose goal is to drive LGBTQ+ Americans back into the closet and erase transgender people from all aspects of daily life,” he said.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and Twitter.

Though typically the idiom “second to none” is a compliment, for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, it means her third defeat in the Republican presidential nomination process. And a humiliating one.

With nearly half the statewide vote counted Tuesday night, Haley was trailing “none of these candidates” in the Nevada presidential preference primary. Haley had 33% of the vote, to 60% for “none,” and The Associated Press called the race for “none.”

Haley was the only active candidate on the Republican primary ballot – Donald Trump deliberately didn’t file and is instead participating in Thursday’s state-run caucus. But there had been a quasi-campaign on the part of Trump forces urging people to vote for “none of these candidates” in the primary. Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has endorsed Trump, has said he would vote for “none” in the primary and then caucus for Trump Thursday night.

Trump himself had not been willing to publicly back the “none” campaign, and in his recent Las Vegas rally told supporters not to “waste time” on the Republican primary. Introducing Trump at rallies in both Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada Republican Party chairman Michael McDonald similarly told the crowds to ignore the primary.

But Nevada Republican Committeewoman Sigal Chattah, an ardent Trump backer, told Mother Jones “We’re telling people to vote ‘none of the above,’” in the hope of landing another blow to Haley’s continued presence in the Republican race.

Haley initially was joined on the primary ballot by former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, though both candidates suspended their campaigns in the fall of 2023.

Nevada’s confusing condition

Featuring both Tuesday’s primary and Thursday’s caucus, Nevada’s third spot on the Republican nominating calendar has led to confusion – and that was not an accident.

The Nevada Legislature attempted to move the state away from party-run caucuses by passing a bill in 2021 mandating state-run presidential primaries be held. Tuesday’s was Nevada’s first primary under the new law.

The Nevada Republican Party led by McDonald, a recently indicted fake elector who has been accused of forging documents in an effort to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results, objected to the state primary, and chose to run a caucus.

State law allows parties to determine how delegates will be awarded in the presidential nominating process, and the Nevada Republican Party declared that only those competing in the caucus could win any of Nevada’s 26 delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer.

Leading up to the election, the secretary of state’s office said “the top issue we get called about” was Trump not appearing on the primary ballot.

Bethany Drysdale, a spokeswoman for Washoe County, said voters on Tuesday were still confused about Trump’s name not being featured, but said the county was referring people to the Republican Party “to learn more about the caucus.”

“There has been some additional confusion from voters who are nonpartisan and did not realize they couldn’t vote in this election,” she said. There hadn’t been any reports of election workers getting harassed, she added.

But confusion – and anger – could be found at the polls.

Nahabedian, a 58 year old voter who did not provide his last name, walked out of the Desert Breeze Community Center in Las Vegas without casting a vote after seeing that Trump was not on his ballot.

“I came out to vote for the primary thinking that the primary was going to include the Republican Party nominees. And the one Republican Party nominee that’s excluded from the state of Nevada is Donald Trump,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been denied the right to vote.”

Haley skipped the state

Trump has won the first two states of the 2024 nominating process: the Iowa Caucus Jan. 15 and the New Hampshire primary Jan. 23.

Trump received 51% of the vote in Iowa. Haley came in a distant third place at 19%, narrowly trailing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 21%. DeSantis dropped out of the campaign days later prior to the New Hampshire primary.

Haley then received 43% of the vote in New Hampshire while Trump won the state with 54%.

Though Nevada is the third state on the Republican presidential nomination calendar, Haley has skipped efforts to compete and has turned her attention to her home state of South Carolina, for decades considered a decisive contest in Republican presidential nomination fights.

“In terms of Nevada, we have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,” said Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney, The Hill reported on Monday.

It wasn’t the first time Haley’s campaign referred to the caucus as “rigged.”

When asked why after finishing second in the New Hamphsire primary, Haley responded, “Talk to the people in Nevada: They will tell you the caucuses have been sealed up, bought and paid for a long time. That’s the Trump train rolling through that. But we’re going to focus on the states that are fair.”

Haley was scheduled to campaign in California Wednesday, one of the delegate-rich Super Tuesday states holding primaries March 4.

A low turnout affair

The lack of a Trump-Haley head-to-head matchup, the inevitability of Biden’s nomination, and a widely held lack of enthusiasm for a Biden-Trump rematch all combined for slow voting primary voting day in the state.

According to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, there are 560,000 registered active Republican voters in Nevada. As of Saturday morning, after the week of early voting, less than 58,000 of them had voted. The Democrats performed a little better. Out of 596,000 registered voters, about 94,000 voted during early voting week. In both parties, the early voting week tallies were predominantly people who voted by mail.

Drysdale, the Washoe County election officials, said only 1,000 people had shown up in person ot vote in the county by noon.

Outside the Desert Breeze Community Center in Las Vegas, a slow trickle of voters braved the rain and cold to vote in the primary.

The lack of voter enthusiasm revealed in the week leading up to the primary continued throughout the day Tuesday. Empty voting booths lined the community center with none of the long lines characteristic of the popular voting location. Poll workers, with no one to direct, waited for in-person voters to arrive.

Steady rain Tuesday didn’t help the turnout.

The scene lacked the fervor and enthusiasm typical of prior presidential preference elections in Nevada, including four years ago when Biden came in second place in the Democratic caucus, behind Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Voters who spoke to the Nevada Current echoed that lack of enthusiasm.

Becky Ulrey, 74, said she came out to vote Tuesday because she always votes and hasn’t missed an election in decades.

“I decided to stick to my regular routine,” Ulrey said.

The registered Democrat explained that she voted for Biden “because there was no one else on the ballot that I was really excited about.”

“I think he is our best bet,” she said.

David Launay, a 64 year old registered Republican, was equally disillusioned. He voted “none of these candidates.” While he plans to participate in the Republican run caucus Thursday to make his vote count, he hopes Republican front runner Donald Trump gets serious competition.

“I’m not enthused at all as far as some of the things Trump’s done,” Launay said. “I’m actually looking at Robert Kennedy now.”

“If (Trump) does win the caucuses, then I will probably end up voting for him. Yet-to-be-determined right now. This is the first year that I’ve been on the fence,” Launay continued.

April Corbin Girnus and Hugh Jackson contributed to this story.

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and Twitter.