The canvassers make $15 to $18 an hour, plus a $50 bonus if they recruit a friend. One of them is Juliette Milano, 24. She said she’s from Venezuela and is applying for asylum, so she can’t vote. But she left her job as a receptionist in an auto shop this year to join the super-PAC. "When Trump started to run, it got to a point where I couldn’t just watch," she said.
After decrying the influence of big money during the Republican primaries, Trump is getting far less help than Clinton from outside spending groups. Still, some donors are mounting a last-ditch spending blitz to narrow the gap. Key to the effort may be Adelson, who runs a global casino empire from his office inside the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Adelson and his wife are already a major force in the Senate contests, having given $20 million to a Republican super-PAC focused on those races.
Adelson offered to spend $100 million earlier this year to help elect Trump, but the most recent federal spending records don’t show if the spigot has opened yet. News reports in recent weeks have said Adelson planned to spend $5 million or $25 million on pro-Trump advertising. Ron Reese, a representative for Adelson, declined to comment.
Trump himself buzzed into town last week, drawing a crowd of about 7,000 people for a rally in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. He also drew a few protesters, including Peyton Olsen, 23, of NextGen Climate. Olsen’s group is funded by Steyer, another billionaire investor, and focuses on mobilizing college students to fight global warming. NextGen is making grassroots organizing a bigger focus this year after an advertising-heavy campaign in 2014 failed to prevent a Democratic rout in Congressional races.
Outside the Trump rally, Olsen was dancing in a polar bear costume and holding a sign saying, "Climate Change is a Hoax - Donald Trump." Next to her was a life-size cutout of Heck, his pockets stuffed full of Koch brothers’ cash.
Trump himself hasn’t built much of a ground campaign in Nevada or other swing states, opting to rely on the Republican Party and on the enthusiasm of people like Julie Brock.She was among dozens of Trump fans who arrived too late to enter the rally site in Henderson. Instead, they lined up along a fence where they could hear but not see him. Brock slipped through this crowd in a "Hillary for Prison" T-shirt, handing out fake million-dollar bills with Trump’s picture on them.
Brock said she’s a registered Democrat and isn’t working with the Trump campaign or any other group. A friend bought the Trump bucks on Amazon.com. After losing a landscaping business and a multimillion-dollar house to the recession, Brock said she’ll do whatever she can to support Trump because only he can revive the country’s economic fortunes.
"He’s cocky," she said. "And in the business world that’s how you have to be. He’s going to get it done."
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.