LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Mayor Karen Bass will make a brief trip to Las Vegas Sunday to campaign for President Joe Biden ahead of the upcoming Nevada primary, Bass' office announced.
"Democracy is on the line. I'm standing with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris because they have locked arms with the people of Los Angeles to address the top challenges we are facing," Bass said in a statement Friday.
"I will do everything I can to ensure we continue moving our city and our nation forward."
Bass will depart for the Silver State on Sunday morning and return to Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, her office said.
Earlier this month, Bass participated in the three-day U.S.
Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in Washington D.C., where she was among several mayors to visit the White House and meet with federal leaders, including Biden.
"I want to thank President Biden for his continued support as we work together to lift up the second largest city in the nation," Bass said at the time.
"During my first year in office, the White House helped us bring thousands of unhoused Angelenos inside, protect our climate with new federal resources and provided support as we recovered from a disastrous fire that closed the 10 (Santa Monica) Freeway."
The Nevada primary will be held Feb. 6, and early in-person voting began Saturday. Biden is one of about a dozen candidates on the Democratic ballot, but is the only major contender. His most well-known challenger is author Marianne Williamson.
Bass called Nevada a "critical battleground" in the expected 2024 presidential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In 2020, Biden took Nevada's six electoral votes by winning 50.1% of the popular vote to Trump's 47.7%.
Nevada's Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, has endorsed Trump for a White House encore. Lombardo recently told the Nevada Independent news website, "I believe (under Trump) the economic picture was better, more predictable, more stable. And then if you look at foreign affairs, (it was) more predictable and more stable. I think he has the ability to move us out of the doldrums associated with President Biden."
Nevada's process to choose delegates to the 2024 Democratic and Republican conventions has become a confusing one this year.
The primary will be run by the state, and, officially, will replace Nevada's longtime caucus system -- the result of a 2021 law change that followed issues with how the Democratic caucuses reported votes in 2020.
However, the state's GOP has objected to the new primary system, citing its vote-by-mail element, among other issues, and will instead hold a party-run caucus on Feb. 8.
There will be a Republican primary on Feb. 6, but the state's GOP has said it will use only the caucus results to determine delegates to its nominating convention later this year. Trump will participate in the caucus, while former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will compete in the primary.
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