Nevada race could determine which party controls US Senate

By Casey Harrison (contact)

Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022 | 2 a.m.

The road to majority rule in the U.S. Senate will most certainly run through Nevada.  

Democrats are clinging to the narrowest of majorities in Congress’ upper chamber with an even 50-50 split among Senators. They have been able to pass key pieces to their legislation in the face of near-universal Republican opposition because of the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.  

That puts the spotlight on the Silver State, where first-term incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is looking to stave off GOP challenger Adam Laxalt. Political forecasts have deemed this race a toss-up, and several recent polls suggest the Reno-based Republican holding a slight lead.  

A CBS/YouGov poll published Thursday showed Laxalt edging Cortez Masto 49% to 48%, well within the poll’s 4.5-point margin of error. Voters in that same survey, conducted Oct. 14-19, said economy and inflation rank among the highest issues facing the nation.  

The incumbent Cortez Masto still finds an 18-point lead among likely Latino voters, a key constituency group that makes up more than 32.3% of Clark County’s population and could decide the fate of the race. 

With competitive Senate campaigns also happening in Pennsylvania and Georgia, Republicans’ best chance to pick up a Senate seat will be in Nevada, according to an Oct. 7 story by the polling site FiveThirtyEight. If Laxalt wins, Republicans have a 56% chance of reclaiming the Senate, as opposed to just an 11% chance of earning a majority if Laxalt loses.  

Republicans, Laxalt included, blame their Democratic counterparts for rising gas prices, inflation and a record-number of arrests at the U.S. southern border with Mexico. That’s where conservatives have been able to gain the most ground, while Democrats have largely focused on codifying abortion rights and lowering drug costs.  

Here’s a closer look at the candidates: 

Economy

Cortez Masto has voted in favor of several policies that were the cornerstone for President Joe Biden’s first-term agenda, including the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and others. Laxalt’s campaign often calls the Senator a “rubber stamp” for Biden, because she votes in Biden’s favor 92.7% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.  

Cortez Masto also supported bills that gave Americans a $1,400 stimulus check under former President Donald Trump at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Big government spending, Laxalt says, is the reason inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year-high compared to last year. The latest report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said inflation rose nationally by 8.2% last month, but Nevada’s rate of inflation is nearly double that, at 16% according to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).  

Laxalt on his website said he will “work quickly to restore fiscal sanity” and vote against frivolous government spending. He likened inflation on consumer goods to a “massive tax increase” on constituents and favors legislation aimed at boosting American supply chains.  

Abortion

Laxalt considers himself pro-life, and opposed taxpayer-funded abortion, according to his website, which also says that, if elected, “he will be a reliable vote against extremist Democrat proposals that would deny babies born alive healthcare or codify barbaric partial-birth abortion practices as federal law.”  

Both parties have introduced bills since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which for nearly 50 years provided the constitutional right to access an abortion. Since it was struck down in a 5-4 decision, dozens of states have imposed restrictions or outright bans on the procedure. In Nevada, voters in the 1990s enshrined the right to abortion up to 24 weeks, as set by Roe.  

The Democratic-led bill would seek to protect abortion federally through 24 weeks, and a bill introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in early September that would ban the procedure after 15 weeks, except in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother.  

Shortly after Graham announced his bill, Cortez Masto said she was deeply opposed to the legislation. 

“I will block any efforts in the Senate to advance a nationwide abortion ban — full stop,” Cortez Masto said. “We don’t need any more male politicians telling women what we can and can’t do with our own bodies.” 

Laxalt, meanwhile, had said previously he would support a referendum limiting abortion to the first 13 weeks, according to an Aug. 2 op-ed of his published in the Reno Gazette Journal. In that op-ed, Laxalt wrote that he agreed with the June ruling by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and said he believed abortion regulation should be left to state lawmakers. 

Laxalt campaign spokesman Brian Freimuth would not say whether Laxalt, if elected, would vote for Graham’s 15-week ban. Instead, Freimuth deferred to Laxalt’s op-ed. 

“This proposal has no chance to pass Congress and receive President (Joe) Biden’s signature,” Freimuth said. “The law in Nevada was settled by voters decades ago and isn’t going to change. As a pro-life candidate, Adam made his views clear in a recent Reno Gazette Journal column.”

Immigration

At a recent roundtable, Cortez Masto proposed finding a middle ground for bolstering security at the southern border, while simultaneously working to create a pathway to citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program.  

The program, established under ex-President Barack Obama — gives immigrants a work visa and protection from deportations. The American Immigration Council says there are 832,881 DACA recipients, with about 11,500 residing in Nevada.  

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month DACA could no longer accept new applicants while the fate of the program will be battled in a lower court.  

Cortez Masto, the first ever Latina elected to the Senate, said whether she wins or loses on Nov. 8, Congress may vote on a pathway for DACA recipients during the lame duck session.  

“We can get it done with a 60-vote threshold, maybe, because there isn’t election year politics during the lame duck, and some of my Republican colleagues will have the courage to come forward and do the right thing on this issue,” she said. “I’ve seen us come so close under the previous administration to get something done in a compromise bill.” 

Laxalt has endorsed Trump-era policies like “remain in Mexico,” which forces asylum-seeking migrants to stay in Mexico while their claim is processed by an immigration judge, according to his site. He’s also vowed to finish Trump’s border wall, and described border security as a top priority for his campaign.  

Laxalt is endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which represents roughly 18,000 border patrol agents, the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents more than 1,000 agencies nationwide, and the Public Safety Alliance of Nevada, a collection of police unions including the powerful Las Vegas Police Protective Agency.  

Cortez Masto, meanwhile, is endorsed by most of the area’s labor unions, the Nevada Police Union, the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, Professional Firefighters of Nevada, and several pro-life advocacy groups. 

In April, Cortez Masto drew the ire of some Democrats and immigration advocates after she opposed Biden’s decision to end a rule known as Title 42, which allowed the U.S. to turn away asylum-seekers because of the pandemic. 

Democracy

Many Nevada Republicans, including Laxalt, touted theories after the 2020 presidential election that mail-in ballots were submitted fraudulently. Nevada election officials spent more than 125 hours thoroughly investigating the claims and found no evidence to support widespread fraud. 

Laxalt was also one of six GOP contenders who either did not respond, declined to participate or gave a deflective answer to a recent questionnaire by the Sun asking if they would accept the results of the Nov. 8 election, win or lose.  

Freimuth, Laxalt’s campaign press secretary, told the Sun, “We have answered this question countless times from your publication since August of 2021,” referring to when Laxalt, who also served as co-chair to Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in Nevada, announced his candidacy. 

While Laxalt wouldn’t respond to our questions, his past actions indicate where he stands. 

As co-chair to Trump’s reelection bid in Nevada, Laxalt filed numerous lawsuits after the presidential election attempting to stop the counting of ballots in Clark County in a coordinated effort with Trump loyalists in other states. All of the lawsuits were thrown out in Nevada. 

Cortez Masto said those efforts to overturn the election results helped spur the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in which five people died. Rioters hoped to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

“Laxalt basically said if he loses this election, it’s because it’s stolen,” Cortez Masto said. “(He) is out there peddling conspiracies and lies, and it is important for the truth to come out. In this age, voters deserved to be informed.” 

Days after officially announcing his candidacy, Laxalt told radio host Wayne Allyn Root he planned to assemble a team to “come up with a full plan, do our best to try to secure this election, get as many observers as we can, and file lawsuits early, if there are lawsuits we can file to try to tighten up the election,” according to the Associated Press.  

In March, The New York Times obtained leaked audio of Laxalt telling reporters he was “vetting outside groups to help in establishing election observer teams and map out a litigation strategy.”

The candidates

Catherine Cortez Masto

Hometown: Las Vegas

College: Bachelor’s in finance from the University of Nevada (1986), Reno, and a J.D. degree from Gonzaga University (1990). 

Past experience: Nevada Attorney General (2007-2015), criminal prosecutor for U.S. Attorney’s Office, former chief of staff for former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller. 

Adam Laxalt

Hometown: Reno

College: Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University (2001), J.D. degree in 2005 from Georgetown University.

Past experience: Nevada Attorney General (2015-2019), aide to John Bolton, who was then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, as well as aide to former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.). Laxalt was a member of the Navy Judge Advocate Gdeneral’s Corps (JAG) from 2005-2010, and, most recently, was co-chair for Donald Trump’s failed re-election bid in Nevada.