Voters who fled ‘communist’ California could win Nevada for Donald Trump, Republicans say

Donald Trump’s politics may appeal more to those who lived in California at the time when Kamala Harris was attorney general

Republican voters fleeing California could help Donald Trump win the swing state of Nevada, it has been claimed.
“I think ex-Californians could certainly be a significant help [to making Nevada red in November]”, Jeff Stone, a Nevada State Senator, told the Politico news website.
“They can also explain to Nevadans what Kamala Harris did as a district attorney in San Francisco, as the attorney general in the state of California.”
Around 150,000 Californians have moved to neighbouring Nevada since 2020, and now make up 20 per cent of the state’s population.
Many became disillusioned by state politics in California, where Ms Harris was attorney general and a senator, it was reported.
It is not known exactly how many of the transplants are Republican voters, but the gap between registered Republicans and Democrats in Nevada has closed from 111,000 in 2020 to 71,000 in 2023.
Joe Biden carried the state in 2020 by 2.39 per cent – or 33,596 votes – meaning any migrating Republicans could leave a sizable impact on next week’s election.
A man who describes himself as the “cowboy Willy Wonka of Nevada” is one of the staunch Republicans to have made the move.
Joe Dutra started a candy business from his trailer in the Californian capital of Sacramento.
In 2006, with both his business and the tax burden of the Golden State growing, he decided to up sticks and open a facility in Reno, Nevada.
“In California, you were just a business,” he said. “Here, you’re somebody that’s bringing jobs to the community … [Nevada’s government] was easy to work with, as compared to doing something in California.”
He claimed most of the Californians moving to Nevada were just like him, Republicans that “just believe in less regulations and lower taxes”.
“I think I’ve seen a lot more people moving out in the last four years,” Mr Dutra added. “It’s been a big push.”
“California just got to be a communist state,” Jim DeMartini, a farmer from California, who moved across state lines, said.
He said he blamed Ms Harris and Governor Gavin Newsom for the “leftist, anti-business legislature”, which included a ban on single-use plastic straws.
Chuck Muth, a Republican consultant in Nevada, believes many of migratory flows are down to those wanting to escape a kind of politics associated with Ms Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.
He said: “There are Californians who fled California and moved to Nevada because they wanted to get away from [Harris’s] types of policies.”
Mr Muth said that you “sure as hell” don’t want the policies in Washington, DC.
The results of recent opinion polls in Nevada have put both Trump and Ms Harris in the lead, revealing a neck-and-neck contest between the two candidates.
A Cooperation Election Study survey had Ms Harris leading by 50 per cent-47 per cent in the state, while a CNN/SSRS study had Trump ahead on 48 per cent-47 per cent.
And more Republicans than Democrats have already submitted a ballot in Nevada, according to a recent Telegraph analysis.