Lara Trump urges Republicans to vote early

Lara Trump, the president’s campaign adviser and daughter-in-law, hosted a small rally in Las Vegas Tuesday at which she delivered familiar criticisms of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and praise for President Donald Trump while also urging Republicans to vote early.

Trump told the crowd of about 100 mostly masked, socially distant attendees to make their voices heard early and tell their friends to support her father-in-law, whom she said has boosted the economy, rebuilt the U.S. military, renegotiated bad trade deals and pushed for peace in the Middle East.

She also criticized Biden, as most of the president’s top surrogates have, for not holding public rallies during the COVID-19 pandemic and made fun of the former vice president’s verbal slip-ups during his public comments.

“I campaigned more to be on the homecoming court in high school than Joe Biden is to be president of the United States,” Trump said.

She accused Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of being a “Trojan horse for the far-left socialists who have taken over the Democratic Party.”

In an interview with the Review-Journal after the event, Trump said her husband and in-laws, including the president, will be rallying in Nevada over the next two weeks because the campaign feels it can win the Silver State.

Trump visited the state on Sunday, and his surrogates have peppered Nevada for weeks as election day draws closer.

Biden, Harris and their surrogates have also stepped up their local campaigning, though their events remain largely digital or smaller in scale due to health concerns during the ongoing pandemic.

Asked whether the Democrats’ early and convincing lead in the state was a concern for the campaign, Trump said Republicans traditionally like to vote in person and on Election Day.

“We still expect that there will be a big surge of Republican and Trump supporters towards the end of the next 14 days,” she said.

As of Tuesday morning, 280,979 ballots — nearly 16 percent of the state’s total active electorate — have been submitted through the mail or during early voting, according to the secretary of state’s office. Nearly 134,000, or almost 48 percent, of those have come from Democrats, while Republicans have submitted more than 86,000, or about 31 percent, the office reported.

Nevada State Democratic Party spokeswoman Madison Mundy said the already record-setting turnout will lead to the rejection of Trump and Republicans across the ballot.

“These desperate, last-ditch attempts from the Trump campaign to spin away this administration’s failures won’t distract Nevada voters from the fact that hundreds of thousands of workers are out of jobs, more than 1,700 lives have been lost, and Trump is still trying to rip away health care from working families,” she said of Lara Trump’s visit.

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