For some Idahoans, Trump’s Nevada rally provides optimism, energy

After President Donald Trump had left the stage to the opening strains of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and the crowd at Elko Regional Airport had thinned significantly, Jayson Lauer lingered several yards away, still holding a campaign sign high in the air.

Nearby, his 15-year-old son, Spencer, wearing an iconic red Make America Great Again baseball cap, filmed what he could of the president’s departure on his cellphone.

The Caribou County duo made the decision to drive roughly 300 miles across state lines for the Saturday morning rally after watching Trump speak in Missoula on television earlier in the week, Lauer said. They’d gotten in line at 8 a.m. that morning — three hours before the president was scheduled to appear — and planned to drive back later that day.

“I just wanted to be here supporting,” Lauer said. “I love that Trump loves me. He gets his energy from the people, and I love that.”

“It was a lot of fun to see his enthusiasm,” Spencer added. “He’s really good with people. I like that about him.”

While the campaign rally in Elko, Nev., was geared toward mobilizing conservative Nevadans to vote for GOP candidates in the Silver State, the event also drew a number of Idahoans who made the trip south to hear the president speak.

Dale Ewerson, Region V Chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, drove down from Bellevue with his wife, Jeanne, on Friday. The pair parked outside the airport and boarded a shuttle bus to the rally site by 6:20 a.m. Saturday.

“Senator Heller’s in a tight race down in Nevada,” Ewerson said. “We’re just hoping to do a little bit to help.”

It was Ewerson’s second time seeing a sitting president in person, he said, after listening to Ronald Reagan speak at the College of Southern Idaho. The Trump rally was, he said, “a little different.”

Prior to the rally, Ewerson said he hoped to hear the president discuss the recent confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, especially how it related to open federal judge seats. After, Ewerson said Trump’s remarks about working with Mexico to determine how to deal with a U.S.-bound caravan of Honduran migrants had resonated most with him.

Twin Falls Republican Gretchen Clelland, who attended the rally with her family, said afterward that she wasn’t particularly surprised by any of the events of the day.

“He was just very Trump-like and kind of said it like it was,” Clelland said.

Clelland and her family had the luxury of arriving slightly later in the morning than Ewerson, thanks to VIP tickets that placed them directly behind the president during his speech.

Kim and Chet Brackett, ranchers from Hollister, weren’t so lucky. The couple boarded a shuttle bus at 6 a.m. and waited in line for two hours after that, Kim said.

As a rancher, Kim said before the rally, she hoped Trump would address public lands in his remarks.

“There’s been some issues for the last several years that have made it really hard to continue our ranching operation as we have traditionally,” she said. “We’ve seen some things change, and we’re excited.”

But for Kim, the contents of the speech were secondary to the setting.

“I just want to be a part of that energy,” she said.

After the rally, Kim said Trump’s remarks gave her optimism.

“It makes me feel like maybe this is returning to the United States that I grew up in, where we can say there’s hope for the future of our kids as we try to turn our ranch over to them,” Brackett said. “Maybe we won’t have to turn it over to them as a business mired in bureaucracy.”

By 2 p.m., the Bracketts had been out and about for more than eight hours, with a long drive still ahead of them.

But “we’re not tired,” Kim said. “It’s a like a shot in the arm, it’s so good we were here... It’s just the best place on Earth to be.”