Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) will appear with President Joe Biden at a North Las Vegas event Tuesday, a welcome sign for a president whom high-profile Democrats avoided at a rally in Michigan on Friday.

Horsford, the chairman of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), has stood behind Biden as one of his most stringent defenders even as other Democrats have expressed misgivings about the president’s ability to win the election or called on him to drop out. On Monday, he affirmed Biden’s candidacy, noting he had been selected by Nevada voters, and later referring to criticism of the president as “ageism and ableism.”

The two will attend a summit in North Las Vegas hosted by Vote to Live Action Fund, a Black voter mobilization group. The event is part of Biden’s two-day swing to Las Vegas to shore up support among Black and Latino voters, two key voting blocs of his 2020 coalition whom polling has shown may be less enthusiastic about the president this cycle. Other CBC members and Nevada political leaders are expected to attend.

Horsford’s willingness to appear with Biden is a gamble that other prominent Democrats facing tight races have largely been unwilling to take. In Detroit, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Gary Peters (D-MI), retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and likely Senate candidate Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) all declined to attend the rally. In Wisconsin the prior week, in-cycle Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) skipped Biden’s event.

As the CBC has remained Biden’s best line of defense on Capitol Hill, Horsford’s enthusiastic backing has been notable given that he’s a Frontline member of the Democratic caucus himself, meaning the party considers his seat competitive. Horsford, whose district encompasses northern Clark County, including North Las Vegas, and rural central Nevada, won his race in 2022 by about 5 percentage points. This cycle, he faces John Lee, former mayor of North Las Vega.

In addition to the summit with Horsford, Biden will address the NAACP National Convention on Tuesday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. On Wednesday, his focus will shift to Latino voters — he will speak to the UnidosUS annual conference at the MGM Grand and discuss how the Latino uninsured rate has dropped and investments in Latino small businesses have grown during his administration. Biden will then attend a community event through the campaign.

The visit to Nevada — and focus on public events — are part of a campaign strategy shift to get Biden in front of voters in unscripted settings more often, particularly in swing states, to allay fears about his age, energy level and cognitive ability. 

While 19 Democrats in Congress have called on Biden to exit the race, none of the state’s five Democrats have done so.