Putting Aside Grudge, Trump Backs Heller in Tight Nevada Race

LAS VEGAS — President Donald Trump on Thursday implored Nevada voters to turn out for the midterms to elect Republicans, warning that Democrats would reverse the gains experienced since he won the White House if they wrested control of Congress.

Making a rare campaign appearance in a state he lost in the 2016 election to support Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who is facing a steep re-election battle, Trump dispensed with some of his usual bravado and predictions of victory and instead told an audience in a cavernous convention center in Las Vegas that the Republican majority was on a razor’s edge.

It is a message that Republican leaders and the president’s own aides have been privately urging him to deliver even as he has crisscrossed the country promising a “red wave,” a refrain that they believe could discourage the party’s voters from turning out to preserve their House and Senate majorities. On Thursday, he never uttered the phrase.

“We have to get out for the midterms — promise me — you got to get out,” Trump said. “When they say we have a majority, it’s like this,” he added, gesturing to suggest a minuscule edge. “If somebody has a cold, we don’t have a majority.”

“It could be very fragile if you have the wrong people in Washington, D.C.,” the president said, warning of crime-ridden communities, “totally unlimited and uncontrolled immigration” and the collapse of Medicare if Democrats win in November.

“It could all end very quickly,” Trump said. “Bad things could happen to the economy very quickly.”

In a state where Hispanics make up more than a quarter of the population, Trump’s crowd broke into several chants of “Build that wall!” and he argued that immigrants were dangerous and a drain on social programs.

“Democrats would bankrupt the safety net through totally unlimited and uncontrolled immigration,” the president said. “You will see crime like you’ve never, ever seen before. The policies of their party aren’t just extreme; frankly, they’re dangerous and they’re crazy.”

Trump, seldom one to drop a personal grudge, even put aside his history with Heller — who vehemently opposed him during the 2016 campaign — and asked Nevada voters to do the same for a man the president said had been a loyal voter for his agenda in the Senate.

“Now, I have to say this,” Trump said. “We weren’t friends — I didn’t like him, he didn’t like me, and as we fought and fought and fought, believe it or not, we started to respect each other, then we started to like each other, then we started to love each other, and the fact is, he has been a tremendous supporter.”

“We have to keep him,” the president said of Heller.

Heller, the only Senate Republican running in a state that Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 election, badly needs the help. He is facing a costly and highly competitive race against Rep. Jacky Rosen, the Democratic nominee in a state where recent polls indicate that about half the voters do not approve of Trump.

Heller was openly critical of Trump during the 2016 contest, but more recently, he has embraced the president, and during a conference call Wednesday with White House officials and Nevada Republican leaders and activists, he called him a “great leader.”

At the rally Thursday, Heller waxed ecstatic about Trump, praising him for enacting legislation to help veterans, to steer more money to the military and to cut taxes.

“Mr. President, it’s an honor to work with you in putting Nevada back to work,” Heller said.

Only hours before the event here, the Trump campaign endorsed Heller, handing the senator what has become a potent tool for Republicans seeking to rally the party’s core supporters. What is less clear, however, is how it will affect other voters in Nevada, where Trump’s approval rating is around 40 percent, usually grim territory for members of the president’s party who are seeking re-election.

Rosen has worked to link Heller to Trump, pointing out that the senator has voted with the president 96 percent of the time and arguing that he would be a rubber stamp for Trump’s agenda should voters return him to Washington.

Trump spent much of the rally focusing on what he characterized as his successes as president, boasting about the strength of the economy, his attempts to build a border wall and his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation has hit a snag with a decades-old sexual assault allegation.

The president said he was confident about Kavanaugh’s chances, even as he refrained from criticizing his accuser.

“Brett Kavanaugh — and I’m not saying anything about anybody else — but I want to say that Brett Kavanaugh is one of the finest human beings you will ever have the privilege of knowing, a great intellect, a great gentleman, an impeccable reputation,” Trump said. “We’ll let it play out, and I think everything’s going to be just fine.”

Trump was sharper, though, when it came Clinton, the news media and his own Justice Department. When the crowd began to chant, “Lock her up!” in reference to Clinton, the president, who has savaged his attorney general and suggested that the department was biased against him, asked the crowd, “How is our Justice Department doing?” As if on cue, the crowd booed fervently.