Drag performers gather at ‘gayest destination’ on Vegas Strip for Harris event

LAS VEGAS — Drag performers led revelers to “the gayest destination” on the Vegas Strip to honor Kamala Harris during a campaign event Saturday in battleground Nevada, where Donald Trump leads by as much as 9 points.

A crowd of about 100 supporters gathered for a bingo game in honor of the vice president at the Queen Bar Las Vegas, a popular spot next to the Viva Las Vegas drive-thru wedding chapel. A woman in a sheer wedding dress and veil stood outside as campaign festivities got underway in the adjacent chapel.

“There are a lot of drag queens — we are very important,” said Angel, the master of ceremonies for the Harris event and a drag performer.

“I think we are the voices of our community,” Angel said. “So I think as queens we have an obligation to speak up and encourage people to speak up and vote.”

Angel said the “overwhelming amount of support that has come in within hours” of President Biden dropping out of the race and Harris announcing her candidacy for president “makes me a lot more hopeful” about Democrats retaining the White House.

The artist danced the night away with a sizzling dance, while two other artists joined in and cheered with the crowd. Angel soon began calling out bingo numbers, with prizes including wine and a whiffle ball paddle.

But behind the festivities – where children were not visible in the audience – enthusiasm for Harris clashed with potentially painful reality.

In a post on X, Decision Desk HQ revealed the huge difference in polls between the two candidates: a whopping 9-point difference in this crucial swing state. The RealClearPolling average of battleground polls from July 21 gives Trump a 5.6-point lead in Nevada.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a national deputy for Harris in his campaign, said he came to the Vegas event to encourage voter turnout.

“We’re here for a ‘Drag Bingo Night,’ which shows that in this campaign we’re going to go everywhere to organize, and we’re going to organize everywhere,” he told The Post after a stirring speech followed by a series of photos with supporters.

Frost told the crowd that he used to call his home state “the great state of Florida,” but now he claims it has lost its luster under the administration of GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was booed by the crowd.

“Yeah, damn it,” said the congressman.

He criticized state leaders who, because of their failures, want to blame the people’s problems on marginalized communities, including immigrants, black people and, yes, the queer community in the state of Florida.

“You know, the right wing wants to pretend to be the patriots… Patriotism is beer, bald eagle and diamonds. That’s bullshit,” Frost said.

Instead, he argued, “(p)atriotism is loving the people who live in the countryside, and I don’t know about you, but name me a community that, despite all the odds, knows more about love than the LGBTQ+ community.”

The first-term Democrat urged the crowd to “use every tool in our toolbox, and we will win this race.”

“We will reject fascism in the form of Donald Trump and we will elect Kamala Harris,” he vowed.

Frost said he is confident Harris will win soon, despite polls in the Silver State showing Trump with a solid lead, outside the margin of error.

“I know we’re going to win if we just look at No. 1, the energy, and we look at the trajectory and the trends,” he said. “If we continue this work — which we will — she’s going to win the campaign.”

Chris Miller, a Las Vegas real estate agent and longtime fan of Harris who wore a rainbow Kamala baseball cap to the event, praised her “no-nonsense, get-it-done approach to government.”

He said he believes Harris will prevail in Nevada, despite the polls. He explained that polling in the Silver State is “extremely difficult” because it is hard to get accurate numbers from rural areas of Nevada.

“I don’t have much faith in polls these days,” Miller said. “Polls have misread a lot of elections.”