After months of pressure, Mitch McConnell’s handpicked candidate Sam Brown finally caved and endorsed Donald Trump for president last week after dodging questions for the past six months about his support for the disgraced former president who lost Nevada twice.
Read coverage about Brown’s desperate, late-in-the-game endorsement:
Nevada Current [Commentary]: Sam Brown and Republican Senate leadership reach out to an audience of one
- Republican leadership, you see, believes a multi-state political office-shopper who has yet to win an election of any kind – Brown – has a better chance than either Marchant or Gunter…During his failed 2022 Senate primary campaign against Adam Laxalt, Brown displayed his worship of Trump on multiple occasions. He has been more dainty about his Trump-love so far this cycle. Until now.
- Brown’s endorsement of Trump can be viewed, at its simplest, as the Brown palm going to the Brown forehead. Brown long ago demonstrated he’s totally down with Trump and Trumpism.
- Alas, Brown does have opponents. Gunter and Marchant have been needling him because he hadn’t endorsed Trump.
The Nevada Independent: Senate candidate Sam Brown endorses Trump for president
- Fellow Republican candidates Jim Marchant and Jeff Gunter had already endorsed Trump, and frequently hammered Brown on his lack of support. Gunter, in particular, has been active online in criticizing Brown, calling him a “Never Trumper” and “RINO,” or Republican in Name Only.
- Both have sought to portray themselves as the true Make America Great Again candidate in the race, referring to Brown as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “handpicked” establishment candidate.
- Brown’s Trump endorsement fits within the political persona he cultivated as a challenger to eventual candidate Adam Laxalt in the 2022 Senate Republican primary. Brown volunteered on Trump’s 2020 campaign in Nevada. In 2022, he accused Laxalt of failing Republicans as Trump’s campaign co-chair, saying Laxalt’s efforts to aid Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election fell short
- .…this time around, Brown had been more muted on Trump and the 2020 election, saying it did not need to be “relitigated.”
