Biden allies believe that of the six swing states everyone's watching, Nevada — which President Biden won by 2 points in 2020, and where both U.S. senators are Democrats — is especially tough.

• Why it matters: How Democrats do in Nevada could determine control of both the White House and the Senate. The Silver State also has one of the seven closest Senate races, Axios' Alex Thompson and Hans Nichols report.

🔎 State of play: Republicans have made gains with Latino voters and people without college degrees — big voting blocs in the state. And economic trends look bleak for Biden:

• Nevada has the nation's highest unemployment rate: 5.3%.
• The state's average gas prices are the nation's third highest — $4.23 a gallon — behind only California and Washington state.
• Nevada home prices have jumped six times faster than wages since 2011, according to a recent study.

Senior Biden officials have told outside allies their internal data has the race much closer than last time. It's "basically a jump ball right now, with a lot of undecided voters," said a person familiar with the Biden campaign's thinking.

• Former President Trump has been leading Biden in Nevada polls, including a 3-point lead in an Emerson College survey out yesterday.
• A warning sign for Biden: That poll had Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) up by just 2 points over Sam Brown, the leading GOP candidate trying to unseat her.

The Biden campaign counters that Nevada's economy has added 285,000 jobs in the last three years and has seen a manufacturing resurgence.

• "We have a strong record to run on in the state and a battle-tested operation at the helm that is putting in the work to win," said Dan Kanninen, battleground states director for Biden's campaign.

🔮 The other states the Biden and Trump campaigns are watching most closely: Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

• Share this story.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking a page from his uncle's campaign playbook to try to pull Hispanic voters away from President Biden and former President Trump, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: The independent candidate is launching a version of President John F. Kennedy's historic "Viva Kennedy!" program — a model that gave birth to the modern Latino vote.

RFK Jr. is on the ballot in Utah, and his campaign says he has enough signatures for the ballots in Nevada, New Hampshire and Hawaii. He's seeking access in battlegrounds Georgia and Arizona, where small political shifts among Latinos could swing a tight presidential election.

• About 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote this year. Hispanics are more diverse and politically independent than when JFK launched his historic outreach program in 1960.

💥 RFK Jr. will kick off a new Viva Kennedy! effort on March 30 in L.A., says Rob Lucero, who is directing the effort.

• The campaign will register voters under RFK's We the People Party, release Spanish-language ads and set up clubs across the country as JFK did.

The intrigue: Some of RFK Jr.'s family is openly supporting Biden and has denounced his attempt to use JFK nostalgia for his long-shot bid.

• Keep reading.

Reddit begins trading today — stock ticker: RDDT — with the first social media IPO in five years, Axios' Dan Primack writes.

• Why it matters: The public listing came with a twist. The company gave some of its power users a chance to become shareholders.

Reddit, one of the most popular sites on the web, hasn't turned a profit in the 19 years since it launched.

• The IPO will end a social media drought that started after Pinterest's listing in 2019.

🐂 Bull case: Reddit is poised to tap a rich well of data-hungry AI companies.

🐻 Bear case: Those AI deals could cannibalize Reddit's core advertising business, and those power users could slam the company on its own platform if the stock price dips.

• Go deeper: Inside one Reddit investor's IPO journey.

The best airport in the country for on-time departures is in the Florida Panhandle, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj write from the latest Transportation Department data.

• The Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (89.5%) narrowly beat Salt Lake City (89.2%) and Hawai'i's Lihue Airport (88.8%) among airports serving more than 1 million passengers annually.

83% of U.S. flights left on time in December 2023 — a big upswing from 2022, when Southwest's epic Christmas meltdown pulled that number down (charted above).

• Worst on-time performances: Fort Lauderdale (67.2%), BWI (69.5%) and Orlando (76.1%).
• Keep reading ... Get Axios What's Next.

The U.S. is planning to airlift at least 30 Americans out of Haiti every day as civil unrest escalates in the Caribbean nation, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• More than a dozen Americans were flown on government-chartered helicopters from Haiti's capital to the Dominican Republic yesterday.

🖼️ The big picture: Violent gangs have remained in control of most of Port-au-Prince for months and have coordinated mass attacks across the capital city in recent weeks, Axios' Jacob Knutson writes.

• The outbreak of political violence has exacerbated one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with roughly 5.5 million people requiring humanitarian aid.

Keep reading.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), the House's largest conservative bloc, proposed raising the retirement age "to account for increases in life expectancy."

• Why it matters: The group's budget blueprint is a wish list for GOP policies if the party takes back the White House and the Senate. The RSC includes 80% of the House GOP, Axios' Juliegrace Brufke notes.

RSC Chair Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) stresses that Republicans "WILL NOT adjust or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement."

• Go deeper: RSC's 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America."

📱 Senate Dems slow TikTok bill, which could kill it:

• Senators signaled after a classified briefing with the intelligence community yesterday — which Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) called "very powerful" — that their most likely next step on TikTok will be ... to hold a hearing, Axios' Ashley Gold reports.

David Rubenstein — billionaire co-founder of the Carlyle Group — interviewed four of the six living presidents for "The Highest Calling," his new book out Sept. 17.

• Why it matters: Rubenstein synthesized conversations from the Oval Office occupants — everyone except Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter, who's in hospice care — into an "enlightening overview of arguably the single most important position in the world."

The book chronicles the presidents "who have defined America as it exists now, what they envision for its future, and their legacy on the world stage."

• The major philanthropist also talked to Hillary Clinton, Maggie Haberman and historian Ron Chernow.
• Rubenstein also drew from his time as a domestic policy adviser in the Carter administration.

Between the lines: President Biden's family regularly stays at Rubenstein's Nantucket house for Thanksgiving.

• More on the book.

The interpreter for the L.A. Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani — baseball's biggest star — was fired and accused of "massive theft" from the two-way player's bank account.

• Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani's longtime friend, racked up $4.5 million in gambling debts to a California bookkeeping operation that's under federal investigation, ESPN reports.

Why it matters: It was a bombshell revelation that emerged just hours after the Dodgers won the first game of a season-opening series in South Korea.

• Mizuhara was in the dugout and reportedly spoke to the team after yesterday's game.

👀 The intrigue: A spokesperson for Ohtani initially told ESPN that the player paid Mizuhara's debts for him. The interpreter also took part in a 90-minute interview with the network.

• But the spokesperson later disavowed that account. Lawyers for Ohtani told reporters: "In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities."

Keep reading.