New reporting from the Washington Post spotlights Sam Brown’s struggling campaign, which is rapidly losing support from Nevadans across the political spectrum – even in his own party. Brown has “failed to generate excitement among conservative voters, even in the more rural parts of the state where Republicans typically win overwhelmingly” due to his “unfamiliarity with state issues.”
Republican Sparks Mayor Ed Lawson, who has never voted for a Democrat before, plans to vote for Jacky Rosen over Sam Brown next month.
Read more below:
Washington Post: In Nevada Senate race, Republican Sam Brown struggles to gain traction
Leigh Ann Caldwell
10/17/24
Key Points:
- SPARKS, Nev. — Ed Lawson, the longtime mayor of this desert city of about 110,000 just outside Reno, said he has never voted for a Democrat. That will change next month when he plans to vote for Sen. Jacky Rosen over her Republican challenger, Sam Brown.
- “Sam Brown doesn’t get it,” Lawson said in an interview. “He certainly hasn’t ever come talk to us and ask us what we need in Sparks.”
- He has also failed to generate excitement among conservative voters, even in the more rural parts of the state where Republicans typically win overwhelmingly, with some citing his unfamiliarity with state issues.
- Brown’s staff recently turned over, a sign of turmoil in the campaign. And he has skipped basic campaign rituals, such as reaching out to local Republican leaders like Lawson.
- Nathan Robertson, a Republican and the mayor of Ely, a small town with about 4,000 residents in eastern Nevada, also plans to back Rosen. The senator always picks up the phone when he calls, he said, and visits the town every year despite Ely being extremely isolated, with the closest cities of Reno and Las Vegas each more than 200 miles away. Rosen has also helped secure federal funding for the small mining town, he said.
- Robertson had not heard from Brown since he began running for Senate this cycle and he’s not convinced Brown understands enough about Nevadans’ challenges to represent them in Washington.
- “Nevadans want to elect someone who they know knows their state, who knows their communities and who has some track record,” Robertson said.
- Lawson, the Sparks mayor, dismissed the idea of facing political backlash for backing Rosen. He was one of six elected Republicans previously censured by the Washoe Republican Party for supporting candidates not on the party’s official endorsement list. He is most concerned about the lack of housing in his city, a crisis affecting the entire state that’s only expected to worsen as new Tesla and Google factories led to population growth.
- Lawson has worked closely with Rosen on legislation that would allow the state to use federal land for housing development.
- “It’s our survival as a city, and Jacky gets it,” he said.
- But at a Latino Americans for Trump event in Las Vegas, the speakers made no mention of Brown. And in one of Trump’s offices in Las Vegas, Trump signs plaster the walls while the only indication that Brown is on the Nevada ballot were fliers on a small fold-up table in the back of the room.
- Abortion politics are playing a major role in Nevada, where voters will weigh a ballot initiative to add a right to the procedure to the state’s constitution. Nevada law allows abortions up until 24 weeks of pregnancy or to save the life of a mother after that point.
- Rosen, in a TV ad, warns Brown will “take away your rights” and calls him a “MAGA extremist,” referring to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
- Brown has been forced on his heels on the issue.
- When asked if he would leave the initiative question blank on his ballot, he said, “I hadn’t even thought about that. That’s an interesting question. So thanks for giving me something to ponder.”
- Bob Olson, a Trump supporter from Las Vegas who is also running for a state assembly seat, said Brown’s campaign has “no substance.” “It’s like putting your finger through smoke,” he said. If he isn’t able to vote for “none of the above,” he’ll vote for Rosen, he said.
- Walking into a Walmart Supercenter in Reno on a recent morning at 7:30 a.m., Kathleen, 78, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used to protect her privacy, said she had just worked a night shift at a casino because her monthly Social Security checks “aren’t enough” to live on. She was a lifelong Democrat but changed her voter registration to Republican because of Trump.
- As for the Senate race? “I go for the gals,” she said, referring to Rosen and fellow Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who won reelection in 2022.
- “They have proven themselves.”
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