Harris made the announcement at a rally on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose economy relies heavily on the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries. Trump promised essentially the same thing at his own rally in the city in June — though neither he nor Harris are likely to be able to fully follow through without action from Congress.

“I promise everyone here that when I am president, we will continue our fight for America’s working families,” Harris said. “That includes raising the minimum wage and eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”

Trump responded shortly afterwards on his social media site, posting that Harris had “simply copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS policy.”

“The difference is she won’t do it, she just wants to do it for political reasons!” the former president wrote. “This was TRUMP’s idea – she has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”

Harris’ campaign later said that as president, she would work with Congress to develop a proposal that would include an income limit and other provisions to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation to benefit from the scheme. She would also work to ensure that the proposal is implemented alongside a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, came to Nevada as the last stop on a blitzkrieg of five swing states that saw her party show renewed energy after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris. On Sunday, the vice president is hosting a fundraiser in San Francisco that has already raised more than $12 million, her campaign said. Speakers include House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi.

On Saturday, over 12,000 people were in the campus basketball arena, and before the event began, local police barred entry to the event because people were getting sick while waiting outside for security in 100-degree heat. About 4,000 people were in line when the entrances were closed.

Walz mentioned this in his speech, but turned it into applause by telling Nevada, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back many times.”

During her trip, Harris hopes to gain more support among Latino voters. In 2020, Biden narrowly defeated Trump in Nevada by 2.4 percentage points.

The 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union announced its support for Harris. About 54 percent of the union’s membership is Latino, 55 percent is women and 60 percent is immigrant. The union also issued a statement supporting Harris’ call for a higher minimum wage and advocating for “ensuring that tips for service and food service workers are not taxed.”

Harris made her promise to repeal the tip tax as part of a broader appeal to strengthen the American middle class, echoing an issue that was a centerpiece of Biden’s now-failed re-election campaign.

“We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for American families so they have a chance not just to make ends meet, but to get ahead,” she said.

AP VoteCast found in 2020 that 14% of Nevada voters were Hispanic, with Biden receiving 54% of their votes. His lead among Hispanic voters was slightly better nationwide, a sign that Democrats cannot take this voting bloc for granted.

“There is an incredible energy here among college students and community members coming together to support and listen to our next president, Kamala Harris,” said Imer Cespedes-Alvarado, 21. Cespedes-Alvarado is a political science major at UNLV and a first-generation American who spent his childhood in Costa Rica before making the difficult decision to return to the U.S. alone at age 16 for better opportunities.

The Vice President also promised to address immigration and, as she did the previous evening at a rally in Arizona, focused heavily on the issue.

“We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it takes to fix it,” Harris said in Las Vegas. She also advocated an “earned path to citizenship” for some people who are in the country illegally and criticized Trump, who she said “talks big about border security but doesn’t follow through on anything.”

The vice president has sought in recent weeks to go on the political offensive on an issue that Trump and leading Republicans have frequently used to criticize her and the Biden administration, with Harris hoping to drive a wedge among Republicans.

Because the Vice President’s work in the Biden administration included addressing the root causes of migration, and some of her statements before the 2020 election prompted many leading voices in the Republican Party to portray her as weak in her stance on the southern border and as someone who enables illegal immigration.

Trump himself said of Harris: “As a border czar, she was the worst border czar in history, in the history of the world.”

The former president had proposed mass deportations if he returned to the White House. However, AP VoteCast found in 2020 that nearly seven in 10 Nevada voters believed immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be given the opportunity to apply for legal status.

Politics aside, many of the rallygoers in Las Vegas were nevertheless enthusiastic about the new energy that Harris and Walz brought to the campaign.

Krista Hall, 60, and her husband, Thaddeus Hager, 58, said they haven’t been this excited about an election since Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.

“This is just as electrifying, if not more so,” Hall said, noting that they attended several Obama rallies at the time. Hager said he was confident Harris and Walz would “win in a landslide.”

Democrats also visited the key “blue” Midwestern states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan last week. Together with Nevada and Arizona, these states represent 61 electoral votes that could be crucial in reaching the 270-vote hurdle needed for victory on Election Day.

Brian Shaw, a Republican from northern Nevada, said Harris’ arrival at the top of the ballot could make it harder for Trump to win because Biden is a “pathetic candidate” and there is little time to expose the vice president’s “incompetence.” He said he attended Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s rally in Reno on July 30 and found him “likable, capable and polished as a politician, but not deluded.”