In the final weeks of the midterm election season, one of the closest Senate races in the nation has become even closer, with Republican Adam Laxalt now polling at parity with Democratic Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada. This race represents one of the GOP’s best chances to flip a Democratic-held seat.
According to a poll taken this week by the Republican Club for Growth and provided exclusively to AWN, Laxalt has increased his lead over Cortez Masto from a month ago when he was down 3 percentage points to 2 percentage points, within the poll’s margin of error.
When compared to a Democratic summertime momentum gain on abortion rights, the increase for Laxalt signals a flip toward Republicans as concerns about the economy take centre stage. As the election on November 8 draws near, independent voters seem to be turning away from the GOP.
In light of Democrats’ request for prominent surrogates to speak in Nevada over the next two weeks, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and former President Barack Obama, Laxalt has a modest advantage in public surveys. Former president Donald Trump held a rally in favour of Laxalt earlier this month.
In the Nevada Senate race, Club for Growth’s super PAC, which is investing over $13 million, found that Laxalt’s support increased from 39% in mid-September to 42% earlier this month, and now to 45%. According to the polling data, support for Cortez Masto appears to have remained constant at 43%. The study, which WPA Intelligence conducted from October 16 to 18, has a 4.4 percent margin of error.
Thursday’s release of a CBS survey revealed that Laxalt had gained 1% as well. Republicans had a slim advantage going into the spring of last year, but as Democrats criticised the GOP on abortion, Cortez Masto became the front-runner.
Since Labor Day, the race has stayed close, and Republicans are using crime and inflation as talking points to appeal to the state’s sizable working-class and Latino electorate. In the party’s fight to retake control of the closely divided Senate, Nevada and Georgia are now the two biggest pickup prospects. This effort entails protecting seats in swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Ohio while unseating at least one Democratic incumbent.
The recent news frenzy surrounding the Nevada race highlights the significant stakes. More than a dozen of Laxalt’s kin supported Cortez Masto last week, which the Republican disregarded by labelling them “Democrats.” Approximately the same amount of Laxalt’s family members criticised his choice to run for governor in 2018, which he lost. Laxalt held the position of attorney general for the state from 2015 to 2019. He is the grandson of Paul Laxalt, a former governor and senator from Nevada.
Early voting starts on Saturday, and mail-in ballots are now being sent to registered voters. Over the past month, the parties have spent about the same amount on television advertisements. Republican organisations have ran advertisements criticising Cortez Masto’s tenure as attorney general and attempting to paint her as the cause of skyrocketing inflation as a result of her approval of major federal spending bills and commitment to President Joe Biden’s policies.
David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, said in a statement to AWN that “Democrats across the country are vulnerable on crime and the economy, and our polling reveals that Sen. Cortez Masto’s record is particularly troublesome for Nevada voters on both topics.”
Both Cortez Masto and Laxalt have emphasised their endorsements from various law enforcement organisations. Felony convicts who received economic stimulus checks from the federal government are highlighted in a new ad that Club for Growth is releasing on Friday. These inmates include guys who have been found guilty of murder, sex trafficking, and child pornography. The Club will spend $2.5 million on the advertisement, some of which will be in Spanish, to appeal to Hispanic voters. The advertisement claims that Cortez Masto cast the “deciding vote” to approve the cheques, but under Trump, payments for pandemic relief also permitted detainees to get checks.
While everything is going on, Democrats are attempting to connect Laxalt to Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the 2020 election as well as his opposition to abortion. In a new Cortez Masto advertisement, a police officer criticises Laxalt for prioritising his support for efforts to reverse the election results over his dedication to peace and order. Laxalt participated in futile legal efforts to overturn the election results.
The Republican Party believes that independents’ rejection of Trump, who only lost the state by 2.7 percentage points, will be outweighed by people’ worries about the cost of products, crime, and their discontent with Biden.