I’m the Governor of Nevada. This Is Why Trump Is Doing So Well With Our Voters.
When Nevadans aren’t happy with the economy and their families’ ability to prosper, they often vote to make a change. In the 2022 elections, I was the only candidate in the country to unseat an incumbent governor of either party. What I heard most on the campaign trail from voters then was the importance of building a stronger economy, particularly the need for good-paying jobs and lower taxes.
Kitchen-table politics are once again demonstrating power in Nevada, as polling shows former President Donald Trump with a sizable lead over President Biden. Nevadans continue to struggle under the weight of inflation, so it does not surprise me to see their frustrations manifest in support for changing our president.
When I took office, Nevada was grappling with the economic hangover of the pandemic. In the following months, we lowered our main business tax by 15 percent, vetoed tax increases, eliminated red tape through executive orders and empowered the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to create competitive incentive packages. The results: We generated $5 billion in new private-sector economic investment, led the nation in annual job growth and created thousands of new jobs in our state. The state has also used federal pandemic relief money to help fund some programs.
Yet many people here are still suffering from higher costs, largely as a result of the Biden administration’s failure to rein in national inflation. Since Mr. Biden took office, prices have risen 19 percent, a major factor in real average weekly earnings dropping 4 percent. This type of economic turmoil is simply unsustainable for Nevada families.
This is especially true when it comes to the cost of housing in Nevada. As I outlined in a recent letter to the president, the median home listing price in Las Vegas was $342,995 in January 2021, but by this year that price had skyrocketed to $460,000. With today’s high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve, prospective home buyers getting a Federal Housing Administration loan with a 3.5 percent down payment could expect the monthly cost for a median home in the Las Vegas area to be around $2,900 per month at the market interest rate of 6.71 percent — over twice the market interest rate and monthly cost in January 2021. The average salary in Nevada is $55,070, but Nevadans now need to make at least $111,557 to afford the monthly mortgage payment for the median home.
Further exacerbating our housing crisis, the Biden administration hasn’t released additional federal land for housing development in Nevada. The federal government controls more than 80 percent of the land in Nevada, and while Nevadans enjoy public access to much of this space throughout the state for things like recreation, agriculture and mining, the reality of this ownership surrounding the urban areas of the state is a limiting factor on the development of new housing options. The land available for development in Las Vegas is currently slated to run out by 2032.
