Where’s Tom Steyer? A Few People in Las Vegas Were Wondering

LAS VEGAS — As six leading presidential candidates brawled onstage in a debate Wednesday night on the Las Vegas Strip, a handful of Nevadans supporting a man who didn’t make the cut were around seven miles away, puzzling over their evening plans.

“Oh, he’s not?” asked an incredulous Cindy Yeargan, 71, when informed that the hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer was not going to be onstage. She was preparing to walk into a Steyer campaign office here. “We were here for a debate watch!”

Mary Holmes, 65, arrived soon after, also under the impression that an event was scheduled at the campaign office.

“He’s a nice man,” Ms. Holmes said of Mr. Steyer. “I want to know exactly what he can do.”

As Ms. Yeargan, Ms. Holmes and a few others would discover, there was not, in fact, a debate watch party happening at the campaign office, even as a truck bearing stacks of folding chairs rolled up early in the evening.

But while Mr. Steyer did not poll high enough to make the debate stage this round after landing distant finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, he has emerged as a genuine threat to a number of his rivals in South Carolina and, potentially, here in Nevada, as the largely self-funded candidate spends millions on the airwaves in both states.

He is also spending his money on splashy campaign events: On Friday, he is set to rally here with the group TLC, known for 1990s hits like “No Scrubs.”

Ms. Yeargan said the television advertisements had piqued her initial interest in Mr. Steyer, who was long a vocal advocate of President Trump’s impeachment and who supports progressive environmental and racial justice policies.

“His environmental approach is to clean up air and water in black and brown communities,” said Jack Arte, 51, Ms. Holmes’s son. “He’s yes on reparations. Mentally — he’s helping people. It’s on his mind.”

Mr. Steyer, a spokesman said, was spending the evening meeting with precinct captains and making calls to his teams around the state to encourage them in the homestretch before the caucuses.

“Tonight’s debate helped one person — Donald Trump,” Mr. Steyer said in a statement after the debate, also saying it was “clear that Bloomberg is probably running in the wrong primary.”

“Instead of focusing on how we can improve the lives of Americans and build a diverse coalition to beat Donald Trump,” Mr. Steyer said, “we saw a lot of bickering over policy discrepancies that won’t matter if we don’t win in November.”

Some of the voters and volunteers who showed up throughout the evening at his bright office with large windows, located in a strip mall, had hoped to see Mr. Steyer discussing substantive issues with his fellow Democrats.

“One of his things is the economy,” Ms. Yeargan said. “He knows it inside and out too, because he’s a businessman and can call Trump out on it.”

Laura Flood, 68, said that she used to live on the same street as former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on the Upper East Side of New York.

She said she was supporting Mr. Steyer, citing his background as “a businessman” and saying “he worked extensively with race relations.”

She was visiting Mr. Steyer’s office as a volunteer, arriving for training, but she also said she was curious to see how Mr. Bloomberg fared onstage, in his first debate appearance of the primary season.

“He was a good neighbor,” Ms. Flood said. “A good mayor.”

About a five-minute drive away, an actual debate watch party unfolded, hosted by the League of Conservation Voters and Chispa, a branch of the environmental group focused on Latinos organizing around climate action.

Over nachos and pasta, attendees watched the debate and responded to candidates — especially, it often sounded, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — with scattered applause and approving snaps.

Bertha Robledo, 85, said through an interpreter that she believed Mr. Sanders was having the strongest night, but she added that she was supporting former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.

“He might have better ideas for our world,” said Ms. Robledo, a volunteer leader with Chispa and an advocate for electric school buses. “Others might be tired. Worn out.”

Asked how he felt the debate was going, Joe Figlow, 70, a Buttigieg supporter, paused.

“Well,” he said, laughing and saying the candidates were acting in self-defense, “It’s a lot of people getting a little nasty.”

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