President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are spending time in Nevada in the days leading up Wednesday's presidential debate, emphasizing their plans for economic development in the state with the nation's highest unemployment rate.

Obama easily won Nevada with more than 55 percent of the vote in 2008. Such a large margin of victory for Nevada's six electoral votes seems unlikely this year.

For people like Nevada resident Tennille Cina, both economic and social issues are playing a role in how they vote.

"I am focused on economic issues because the economy is so poor right now," she said. "But social issues are contributing to the recession. People on welfare need to go out and get jobs, but it is hard because there aren't any jobs to be had."

Cina and her husband are in the construction business, an industry that has been hit particularly hard by the recession. If the economy does not improve, she said they will likely have to close their business.

Nevada has an unemployment rate of 12.1 percent, which is four percentage points higher than the country as a whole. 

“I’m definitely voting for Mitt Romney,” she said. “He has ideas in order to create jobs.”

One Romney ad running in Nevada this week claims that the presidential candidate’s economic plan will create 12 million new jobs during his first term. 

Los Angeles-based political consultant Nii-Quartelai Quartey, who camapigned for the president just outside of Las Vegas with more than two dozen other people last weekend, said Obama's the one with specific plans out there -- blocked by Republicans in Congress -- to create jobs.

"Romney's focus on tearing the president is really going to miss the mark," Quartey told reporters Tuesday, looking ahead to Wednesday's debate. "That's not what the people of Nevada are looking for."

In addition to jobs, the housing market in Nevada will be an area of opportunity for candidates to grow supoprt for their plans. Nevada’s housing market crashed harder than most. Nearly 60 percent of Nevada homeowners are underwater on homes now worth less than half their value before the recession. 

“A lot of people have lost their homes and are trying to move forward,” Cina said. “Now people are concerned about work.”

Reach reporter Jillian Olivas here.