Trump supporters in Summerlin inspired, hopeful for 4 more years

Around 40 people gathered at the Omelet House in Summerlin on Thursday to watch the final night of the Republican National Convention, cheering and at times rising to their feet during President Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech.

Courtney Holland, a local conservative activist with a large online following, called the president’s speech “inspiring” and left her feeling “hopeful and loved.”

Holland said the energy of the Republicans’ convention differentiated it from the Democratic National Convention last week.

“(The Democratic convention) felt like a Zoom call with celebrities and people who were out of touch with the average American,” Holland said. “And this week, it highlighted people with so many different backgrounds … just hard-working Americans. It really highlighted the average American and what their story is.”

Assemblyman Glen Leavitt, Assemblywoman-elect Annie Black and Las Vegas City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman were among those in attendance.

Andy Matthews, the Republican candidate for Nevada’s 37th Assembly District, said the president presented a clear vision for the future.

“(The election) is a choice between a vision that will lead to more growth, more opportunity and keep us strong and secure, or a vision that frankly will make us less prosperous, strong and free,” Matthews said.

He said Nevada voters — not just Republicans — are beginning to see Trump is the better option for kitchen-table issues: Getting a good job, educating your children, keeping your neighborhoods safe and having good health care.

The watch party also received a visit from the “Women for Trump” bus, which stopped in Nevada this week as it wheels its way through key 2020 battleground states.

“What we’re hearing is what we always hear, which is that really these voters know they have a fighter in President Trump,” said Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign’s director of press communications and one of the bus tour’s surrogates. “Americans know that this is a president who is stepping up for them every day.”

Perrine said Nevada is a winnable state for Trump’s campaign, which has kept staff on the ground since 2015.

Jesse Jane Duff, a retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and co-chair of Veterans for Trump, said Nevada stood as an example of government overreach.

She criticized the shutdown of the state’s key industry, tourism, during the onset of the pandemic, and the more recent move to begin the school year with distance learning practices in place.

“We know that Donald Trump is the man who can bring the country back to where it was prior to COVID,” Duff said.

Nevada State Democratic Party Spokeswoman Madison Mundy said Trump “is scared” in Nevada, where his campaign has filed a lawsuit opposing the expansion of voting by mail.

“It is clear Trump is worried about what Nevadans will say this November,” she said.

Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.