The Silicon Valley congressman, joined by journalist Don Lemon at the University of Nevada, Reno, pressed his case on college costs, jobs in the age of artificial intelligence and the cost of living, a day after telling a Las Vegas audience he would offer voters “substance” if he runs for president.
Rep. Ro Khanna spent the end of his week in Nevada, the state that will hold the second contest of the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar, and he used the time the way a national candidate would. On Thursday he sat for a live interview at the Nevada Independent’s IndyFest conference in Las Vegas alongside three other potential Democratic contenders. On Friday he was on the University of Nevada, Reno campus with the journalist Don Lemon for the latest stop on his Students for Solidarity college tour.
“We want to encourage young people to get out and vote, but we also want to speak to the issues they care about: having free college with the enormous debt, ending this war in Iran that’s driving up prices, making sure that we’re dealing with the cost of living,” Mr. Khanna said in Reno, KOLO-TV reported.
The tour, which has also stopped in Boston, Orlando and Berkeley, focuses on affordable education, Medicare for All, anti-war priorities and the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs. Speakers at the Reno event discussed shifting money from missiles and bombs toward schools and the work force.
“Young people are saying I can’t get a job, I can’t pay the rent, I don’t know how I’m ever going to buy a house, this economy isn’t doing it for me, what are you doing for me,” Mr. Khanna said. He told KOLO he hoped students would “get involved in politics and start to demand that we have politics that is uncompromised, not just to the donor class.”
A record he brings to campus
The Reno stop was a return visit of sorts. Mr. Khanna helped drive the Google-supported TechWise program at UNR, which supports and funds students pursuing careers in software engineering, KOLO reported, and he told the station he is always excited to be at the university.
That project reflects the theme that has defined his decade in Congress representing a district that includes Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Milpitas: spreading the gains of the technology economy beyond Silicon Valley. He was the lead House sponsor of the Endless Frontier Act, the research and manufacturing bill that became a foundation of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. He is the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and he serves on the Armed Services and Oversight committees. He worked with Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, to force the release of the Epstein files, a bipartisan effort he highlighted on the tour, The Washington Post reported.
His economic pitch is distinctive within his party’s left. Mr. Khanna calls himself a “progressive capitalist” and wants government to use tax incentives to bring technology hubs and manufacturing jobs to rural towns and communities left out of the tech boom, paired with penalties for companies that move jobs overseas, a living wage and neutrality in union organizing, The Post reported. “If Donald Trump can bully you to build his ballrooms, the next president should make these business leaders invest in America, in the Black South, in abandoned factory towns, in rural America,” he told the paper.
At home, he has become one of the most prominent supporters of Proposition 40, the one-time tax on Californians worth more than $1 billion that voters will decide on Nov. 3, and which Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes. After Meta disclosed an arrangement that would let Mark Zuckerberg pay the tax and stay in California if it passes, Mr. Khanna wrote on X: “Looks like billionaires will stay and figure out a way to pay the tax. Gavin, can you and Sergey Brin stop with your fear-mongering of a billionaire exodus?” Bloomberg Tax reported.
The road to 2028
Mr. Khanna has been open about his ambitions. In August he told NPR he was “thinking seriously” about running for president in 2028, describing the race as a “breaking point in America.” He told The Post this week that he plans to decide by the end of the year whether to seek the nomination, though he may announce later, and that the decision depends largely on his family’s support.
At IndyFest in Las Vegas on Thursday, he made his case in his own terms. “I’m not going to be the most charismatic guy — I’m not going to be the person doing the most fun TikToks,” he said, according to The Nevada Independent. “If this country, after a showboat and showman, wants substance, if they actually want a substantive plan for how to have economic security and success across America, then I would submit that if I run, then I should be considered.” He shared that stage with Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
He has also campaigned well beyond California this cycle, including in Nebraska for the independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn, CBS News reported. With a national college tour, back-to-back appearances in an early primary state and a stated timeline for a decision, Mr. Khanna is among the likely contenders for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
He has acknowledged that he starts from behind in name recognition, telling NPR he sits around 2 percent in national primary polling, and some young voters have questioned his label. “It’s a little bit of an oxymoron,” one University of Central Florida student told The Post. Mr. Khanna’s answer is that voters want a leader who understands where the economy is going. “They’re looking for someone who has a clear understanding of the modern economy,” he told the paper. All of the students The Post interviewed at his Orlando stop said they would consider supporting him.
The Inquirer sought comment from Mr. Khanna’s office, the Nevada State Democratic Party, political scientists Eric Herzik and Jeremy Gelman of UNR and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies on Saturday. None responded by publication time.
Beatrix Halloran covers the campaigns, money, ambitions and personalities of Northern California’s congressional delegation, for The Delegation. More from Beatrix Halloran
