The Republican Party’s presidential candidate refers to Mexicans as rapists and wants to build a wall along the entire southern border. The Democratic candidate for Senate in Nevada is Catherine Cortez Masto, a Latina whose grandfather came to the U.S. from Chihuahua, Mexico. And a Democratic House candidate is Ruben Kihuen, who came to the U.S. at age 8 from Guadalajara, Mexico.

As a state that has been built on the gaming industry and tourism tied to it, Nevada knows odds. And the odds are now against Donald Trump here. Stylistically, Trump would seem a natural fit for the Silver State’s pronounced anti-establishment streak. When Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ran for re-election here, he proclaimed he was "independent, just like Nevada.” Meanwhile, non-college-educated white voters exceed the share of white voters who are college-educated — a favorable dynamic for Trump, who has consolidated white working-class support across the country.

Nevada voters unhappy with the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t have to consider Libertarian Gary Johnson or either of the two other candidates on the ballot (Jill Stein of the Green Party failed to qualify).

In 2012, Brookings Mountain West at UNLV and the Brookings Institution collaborated on a book project, “America’s New Swing Region: Changing Politics and Demographics in the Mountain West.” It examined how the politics of Mountain West states — Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and Utah — are being reshaped by the region’s changing demography and increased urbanization.

Take away the “Access Hollywood” hot-microphone scandal, the ranting performance in the first presidential debate and all of Donald Trump’s other self-inflicted wounds, and he still would have faced an uphill battle in Nevada, said one of three experts taking part in a panel discussion about the 2016 election today at UNLV.

They don’t call Nevada a battleground state for nothing. With 30 days left until the election (well, 32, but who’s counting?) the Silver State is anyone’s to win. Candidates in the two biggest-ticket races here — president and U.S. Senate — are statistically tied in the latest polls. Voter data on the state’s two House races are less plentiful, but the outcome of each still hangs in the balance.

About one of every nine voters this fall is expected to be Latino. In critical swing states like Colorado, Florida and Nevada, that percentage is likely to be even higher.

A day after a KTNV/Rasmussen Reports poll found a small majority of Nevada voters were against raising room taxes to fund an NFL stadium, another poll finds the opposite.