Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen won reelection to a second term, keeping a critical U.S. Senate seat in Democratic hands.
Rosen defeated Republican Sam Brown, a former Army captain wounded in the Afghanistan War.
For the length of her race, Rosen maintained a stronger polling lead than any of her fellow Democratic incumbents in swing states, though Brown narrowed her advantage in the final weeks.
Still, Rosen’s victory spares Democrats a potentially embarrassing and costly defeat in the Battle Born State, where the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s vaunted political machine had given Democrats the upper hand for the better part of two decades.
“Since I’ve been in Congress, I’ve really been focused on Nevada. I’m a pragmatic problem-solver,” Rosen told HuffPost in a late September interview. “People in Nevada know that I’m willing to invest in them, expand opportunities, and not afraid to take anybody on, whether it’s the post office or [President Joe Biden].”
Brown, a former state House candidate in Texas and unsuccessful contender for the GOP Senate nomination in Nevada in 2022, tried to preempt criticism of his opposition to abortion rights by revealing in an interview with his wife, Amy, in February that she had had an abortion before they met. He also affirmed that he would not vote for a federal abortion ban infringing on Nevada’s protections for the procedure.
But Rosen leveraged a fundraising edge to define Brown as an extreme opponent of abortion rights before Brown had the resources to respond on the television airwaves. “He’s trying to change his story to get elected, but for years, MAGA extremist Sam Brown has been pushing to ban abortion,” a Rosen ad warned in July.
In the final two weeks of the race, as former President Donald Trump developed momentum in Nevada and early-voting patterns pointed to strong Republican turnout, national GOP groups decided to pour millions of dollars into the race on Brown’s behalf.
A video spot by the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Republicans’ main super PAC, depicted Rosen as an antagonist to Trump who has backed “radical liberal policies” on inflation, immigration and transgender rights.
“A vote for Jacky Rosen is a vote against Donald Trump,” the ad began.
That message did not get enough traction, however, because of Rosen’s ability to point to high-profile moments when she broke with Biden, including by opposing solar panel tariffs and mineral mining regulations.
Rosen’s ads frequently referenced the fact that Georgetown University’s Lugar Center ranked her one of the most bipartisan senators.
She also relentlessly emphasized her work to combat inflation by opposing a major supermarket merger and voting for a bill that capped seniors’ insulin costs at $35 a month.
“We can’t let special interests keep ripping us off,” she concluded in one TV spot, while standing in the produce area of a grocery store.
Democracy In The Balance
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