Donald Trump’s pitch to sway Nevada voters ahead of US presidential election

Donald Trump has told a sweltering Las Vegas rally he’d seek to end taxation of income from tips in a direct appeal to service workers in the swing state of Nevada.

The presumptive Republican nominee for November’s US presidential election hired extra medics, loading up on fans and water bottles at the outdoor rally, where temperatures exceeded 37C, with six people sent to a hospital and another 24 treated on site.

He said the campaign would offer help to people who were feeling tired and joked that “everybody,” including the Secret Service, was worried about the safety of the crowds and not about him.

“They never mentioned me. I’m up here sweating like a dog,” he said. “This is hard work.”

“I don’t want anybody going on me. We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.

“This is the first time I’ve said this, and for those hotel workers and people that get tips you’re going to be very happy because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips people (are) making,” Trump told a crowd of several thousand.

“You do a great job of service, you take care of people and I think it’s going to be something that really is deserved.”

The Las Vegas speech was Mr Trump’s first large-scale rally since a New York jury found him guilty on May 30 of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election, making him the first former US president convicted of a crime.

He is scheduled to be interviewed by New York probation officials via a video conference overnight, a required step before his July sentencing. Mr Trump, pictured above at the rally, remarked the heat was “not as bad” and said he was angrier with the teleprompters not working well

“I pay all this money to teleprompter people, and I’d say 20 per cent of the time, they don’t work,” he said, adding he would not pay the vendor who provided the prompters. “It’s a mess.”

Nevada is one of seven swing states likely to determine the election. A Fox News survey conducted after the guilty verdict showed Mr Trump ahead of President Joe Biden in Nevada by five percentage points, an advantage roughly in line with an average of polls compiled by poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight.

Rebecca Gill, a political science professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, said she was sceptical that polls were fully capturing where voters will be in a few months, given that many are not yet paying attention to the race.

Ms Gill said she did not think Mr Trump’s criminal conviction has fully sunk in with voters and could deter some moderate Republicans from backing him. In addition, a proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in the State constitution would, if it makes it onto the ballot, likely boost Democratic turnout.

Overnight, Mr Trump was also due to address a Christian group that calls for abortion to be “eradicated entirely,” he again takes on an issue that Democrats want to make a focus of this year’s election.

The former president is scheduled to speak virtually at an event hosted by The Danbury Institute, which is meeting in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual Southern Baptist Convention.

Mr Trump takes credit for the overturning a Federally guaranteed right to abortion — having nominated three of the justices who overturned Roe v. Wadebut — but has resisted a national abortion ban and says he wants to leave the issue to the states.