Obama to speak at campaign rally for Nevada Dems

Former President Obama will travel to Las Vegas next week to campaign for Democrats running for statewide and congressional offices.

The Nevada Democratic Party announced that the 44th president will highlight Rep. Jacky Rosen’s (D-Nev.) bid to unseat Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Steve Sisolak’s (D) gubernatorial candidacy, and “Democratic candidates up and down the ticket” at a rally on Oct. 22.

Obama will encourage voters to cast their ballots using early voting in the state, which runs through Nov. 2. The event is scheduled for 1 p.m. local time at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. 

{mosads}The former president will be in Las Vegas two days after President Trump swings through the state to host a campaign rally in support of Heller.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is also scheduled to be in Las Vegas on Saturday for an event encouraging early voting.

Obama and Biden carried the state in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton narrowly won the state in 2016.

The Nevada Senate race is one of a handful of key Senate contests next month that will determine control of the upper chamber.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, rates the Nevada race as a “toss-up,” and a RealClearPolitics average of polls in the election shows the incumbent with a 1.7 percentage point lead.

Sisolak (D) will face Republican nominee Adam Laxalt in a bid to replace Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), who is not eligible for reelection because of term limits.

Next week’s event will be the latest in a string of recent appearances Obama has made to boost Democrats ahead of next month’s midterms. He returned to the campaign trail last month, delivering a stinging rebuke of Trump during remarks at the University of Illinois.

He has since appeared in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and released a list of endorsements for hundreds of Democratic candidates nationwide.