Nevada congressional members attending, boycotting Trump's State of the Union

Ricardo Torres-Cortez, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Feb 24, 2026

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Three members of Nevada’s congressional delegation confirmed Monday that they will be attending President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday, while a congresswoman said she was boycotting it.

Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto and their Democratic colleague, Rep. Susie Lee, were slated to show up to the joint-congressional address and two have announced their guests. A spokesperson for Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said that she won’t show up, but will be watching.

Reps. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., and Mark Amodei, R-Nev., hadn’t announced their plans Monday. Their offices did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said last week that he’d given his caucus options.

“The two options that are in front of us, in our House, is to either attend with silent defiance or to not attend and send a message to Donald Trump in that fashion,” he said.

In remarks from the White House on Monday, Trump said touted the U.S. economy and said the country was doing well.

“And you’ll be hearing me say that,” he said previewing Tuesday’s address. “It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment about the speech’s planned boycott.

Address precedes midterm elections

Some House Democrats disrupted the annual address in 2025. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was booted and others walked out, Axios reported.

Jeffries noted that there will be alternate programming in the vicinity of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal also asked the Nevada delegation’s offices what the lawmakers would like to hear from Trump’s remarks.

Only Rosen responded to that inquiry.

“Nevadans need to hear the President acknowledge that the affordability crisis isn’t a ‘hoax’ and outline a real plan to actually bring down costs,” the senator said in a statement.

The annual State of the Union — in which the head of state outlines his administration’s agenda — is required by the U.S. Constitution, according to the Associated Press. The first speech was given in 1790 by President George Washington in New York.

Nevada congressional guests

Congressional guests represent, at least symbolically, issues Congress members want to highlight. Rosen invited Vania Carter-Strauss, a nurse practitioner, who’s a small business owner and faculty member at the nursing school at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“She has seen up close how Nevadans have been negatively affected by cuts to Medicaid, Congressional refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, and complete inaction on lowering health care costs,” Rosen said in a statement. “As an entrepreneur, Vania has also been impacted — like so many other small business owners in Nevada — by tariffs that have raised costs for hardworking families.”

Social worker and single mother Katie Provost is Lee’s guest. The congresswoman said that Provost had also been affected by cuts to the ACA.

“Sadly, her story is one that is all too common because this Administration would rather protect the interests of the wealthy and well-connected than those of working mothers like Katie,” Lee said in a statement. “There will be a lot of talk tomorrow evening, but what the President won’t mention is how he’s made health care unaffordable for millions of Americans like Katie in order to give tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations.”

Trump’s address is scheduled to take place in the midst of a partial government shutdown fueled by a stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding as immigration enforcement has taken center stage. Furthermore, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled against his use of tariffs, his signature economic policy.

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll published Sunday said that Trump had a 39% approval rating, while 60% of respondents said they disapproved of his job. A poll conducted by Emerson National Polling in mid-January put the president’s approval rating at 43%, with 51% disapproving and 5.4% of those polled saying they were either neutral or had no opinion.

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