Kamala Harris answers questions in Las Vegas town hall

Undecided voters from across the U.S. had the opportunity to quiz Vice President Kamala Harris during a Las Vegas town hall Thursday afternoon.

Noticias Univision — which hosted the “Los Latinos Preguntan” event at the Cox Pavilion on the UNLV campus — was broadcasting the program later in the evening.

Attendees came from California, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin and Las Vegas. They had been identified as undecided U.S. citizens invited by the Spanish-language network to participate.

“Our news division has created a format intended to enable a diverse cross section of undecided Hispanic voters to bring their questions directly to the presidential candidates,” according to the media company.

In a tight race in a battleground state such as Nevada, Latino voters — who make up 20 percent of overall voters — have the potential to swing elections. An Emerson College poll released Thursday showed Nevada voters who identified as Hispanic or Latino favored Harris over Donald Trump 57.6 percent to 41.8 percent.

Harris: Immigration system ‘broken’

Early in the event, a local woman cried as she told Harris that her mother had died a few weeks ago. She said that her mother, who was a longtime undocumented immigrant, had no access to health care.

“Do you have plans to support that subgroup of immigrants here for a long time?” she asked.

Harris said she wants to take steps to fix what she called the nation’s “broken immigration system,” including signing into law a bipartisan border bill she said candidate Trump had derailed.

Harris said her goal was to establish an “orderly and humane pathway to earn citizenship for hardworking people,” including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.

Harris empathized with the mourning woman and asked for her mother’s name, Maria Dolores Figueroa, which the vice president repeated.

After the event, Harris approached the woman, held her hands, and they shared a conversation.

‘I don’t admire that’

Nine other people asked questions, including about Harris’ replacement of President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, the economy, the federal government’s response to recent hurricanes, and abortion rights.

Teresa Djedjro spoke about political division and asked Harris if there’s something she admired about Trump.

Harris said that it “pains” her the way Trump and his surrogates have crafted an “us vs. them” mentality that includes belittling, name calling, and fear.

“I don’t think that’s healthy for our nation and I don’t admire that,” Harris said.

She added: “I think Donald Trump loves his family, and I think that’s very important.”

Trump’s Univision town hall next week

Trump will have the chance to address Latinos in a similar Noticias Univision event in Miami next week. He is also scheduled to address a roundtable of Southern Nevada voters in North Las Vegas on Saturday.

In a statement, Trump’s campaign said that Harris can’t “connect genuinely with Latino voters who demand real solutions and answers” and that she “continues to “only pay lip service on the very issues she helped create,” particularly in Nevada.

Continued Vianca Rodriguez, the campaign’s deputy Hispanic communications director: “Donald Trump is making historic inroads with Latinos at a time when they feel most forgotten because the current Democrat Party as it stands is completely out of touch with the Latino-American community.”

Ahead of Harris’ town hall Thursday, Trump’s campaign launched a Spanish-language mobile billboard campaign in Las Vegas, highlighting what it says were her “past comments” in response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire that included a question about gender-affirming care as part of state medical care, including for those in prison and immigration detention.

“As candidate for President back in 2020, Kamala Harris made it clear her priority to back government guaranteed transgender surgeries for prison inmates and illegal immigrants over policies to support hardworking Americans,” the campaign wrote.

‘Not the time’ for politics

During the hourlong event Wednesday, Harris incorporated aspects of her stump speech as she responded to questions from members of the audience. At turns, the Democratic nominee would interject criticisms about Trump and his agenda.

A man said his family in Florida had been in the path of a hurricane, and asked about the government’s response.

Harris criticized the spread of misinformation and disinformation about the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“This is not the time for people to play politics,” Harris said.

Francisco Medina, of California, said he was a federal employee with good insurance but was still having a hard time receiving timely health care.

Medina said he traveled to Mexico where he received attention right away.

Harris said that she had a deep belief that access to health care is a right, and not just a privilege.

“It should be something that we make accessible to all people,” she added.

Martha Rodriguez, 62, said she’d been homeless after a heart attack and a bout with long COVID. She’s been waiting for three years for disability benefits, she said. “I have no health insurance.”

Harris said she would push the government to recognize long COVID and other acute illnesses as official disabilities and to reclassify medical debt so it doesn’t affect credit scores.

“All people, regardless of disability, should have access to housing, to job opportunities, to education and … to dignity,” Harris said.

Mario Silva, a 70-year-old California man, told Harris that he’s voted for both parties in the past, but was leaning toward Trump this time. He expressed unease about how Harris replaced Biden at the top of the ticket shortly before the election, describing it as “unprecedented.”

Harris said Biden had put country above self, something she said Trump had not done, she said.

She then criticized Trump’s actions around the riots at the Capitol after the 2020 election, and then touted her bipartisan endorsements.

Harris said November’s election was described by some as “unprecedented.”

“I believe that the stakes right now are extraordinarily high,” Harris said. “I hope to earn your vote, and I thank you for your candor,” she said.

Wendy Solares, 37, noted that the cost of living had gone up, and despite hearing about how the economy has improved, it’s still pinching her family’s pocketbook.

“What are you going to do to help the middle class so that the cost of living does not destroy us?” Solares asked.

Harris touted her “opportunity economy” plan that she said would provide tax breaks to new parents, new home buyers and small business owners.

“We have to bring down prices,” Harris said. “Economic numbers are looking good, but it still doesn’t change the experiences you’re having at the grocery store.”

Harris’ recorded town hall was set to broadcast at 7 p.m. local time Thursday.

The program will be translated in Spanish on Univision and the media company’s streaming service, Vix’s Noticias 24/7 channel. It will also be available in English on YouTube.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.