Ryan set for Las Vegas visit on Tuesday

Paul Ryan will visit Las Vegas on Tuesday, making his first campaign appearance in the battleground state of Nevada as Republican Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate, a source said Sunday.

Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, will attend a private fundraising event at The Venetian, which is owned by Sheldon Adelson. The Sands Corp. chief is a generous GOP donor who already has contributed $10 million to a political action committee, Restore Our Future, supporting Romney's campaign.

The Romney campaign also is working to arrange a public event to introduce Ryan to Nevada voters three days after Romney announced he would join him on the GOP ticket, said the source close to the campaign.

"America is on the wrong track, but Mitt and I will take the right steps, in the right time, to get us back on the right track," Ryan said Sunday in a fundraising email to supporters. "And together, we will unite America and get this done."

Sending Ryan to Nevada is another sign of how important the Silver State is to Romney's presidential hopes. Romney has lavished attention on the state, announcing his economic plan here and visiting at least a half a dozen times to rally supporters and to raise millions of dollars.

Ryan is expected to help Romney quickly raise millions more in the days and weeks after his decision to pick Ryan as his running mate.

Ryan's visit comes as Republicans kick off a second statewide bus tour for the Romney campaign.

The five-day, 13-city bus tour starts Monday with stops in Las Vegas. Laughlin and Searchlight, the hometown of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader. Other scheduled stops include Henderson. Pahrump, Boulder City, Mesquite, Ely, Eureka, Austin, Fallon, Sparks and Reno.

Local, state and national surrogates for the Romney-Ryan ticket will join the tour at various stops, the campaign said.

The bus will serve as a mobile campaign headquarters, focusing on volunteer recruitment, voter registration and expanding campaign operations in every part of the state. Earlier this summer, the Romney campaign recruited more than 1,000 volunteers, officials said.

The Ryan choice has excited conservatives who know him as the architect of a House budget plan to cut government spending and deal with record budget deficits and U.S. debt.

Democrats have attacked the Ryan budget, mainly for proposing to change Medicare into a voucherlike health care program for future retirees under age 55. Ryan contends his plan preserves benefits and prevents Medicare from running out of money.

In a joint appearance Sunday night on "60 Minutes," Romney said he and Ryan have talked about providing people with more Medicare choices and making sure the program doesn't change for current seniors or those nearing retirement.

Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.6 percent, making the state tougher for Obama to win for a second time in 2012.

But he is leading Romney in polls here by several percentage points thanks to his strength among voter groups such as blacks, Hispanics, women and the young.

Contact reporter Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Follow her on Twitter @lmyerslvrj.