Brown’s Nevada Primary Win Tees Up Key Senate Race

Army veteran Sam Brown easily secured the Republican nomination in Nevada’s Senate race Tuesday night, setting up a spirited battle against incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen in what is expected to be one of the nation’s most closely watched 2024 Senate races.

Brown could pick up the seat for Republicans

The outcome could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Rosen’s seat is considered the best pick-up opportunity for Republicans outside the red states of West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio. Senate Republicans only need to win two seats to hit the magic majority number of 51, but they can also regain control if they swing one seat and former President Trump wins back the White House with a GOP vice president stepping in to break any tied Senate votes.

Brown, who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan that scarred his face, lost a primary two years ago to former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who ultimately fell in a hard-fought battle against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Laxalt lost by less than 1% in a contest in which the GOP was heavily criticized for failing to invest in a competitive early voting ground game.

Democrats have a natural ground-game advantage in Nevada, where the powerful Culinary Workers Union, representing tens of thousands of hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, comes out in force to help with the final get-out-the-vote push. In 2014, Brown also ran an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the Texas state legislature.

After Tuesday night’s primary win, Brown gave a sartorial nod to former President Donald Trump while exuding confidence about his chances in the general election.

Victory speeches

“Thank you all for your support in this resounding victory tonight here in our primary,” Brown, dressed in a bright solid-red tie and blue jacket, said in a video on X.com.

It’s on to November, where we’re going to bring back accountability to D.C., we’re going to restore good leadership, and we’re going to have something to hope for.

If the retired U.S. Army captain manages to defeat Rosen in November, he’ll likely be riding Trump’s coattails. Trump has consistently out-performed President Biden in polling in the state, and the former president helped seal Brown’s primary win with a last-minute endorsement late Sunday after giving Brown a shoutout at a rally in Las Vegas.

“Sam Brown is a FEARLESS AMERICAN PATRIOT, a Purple Heart Recipient, who has proven he has the ‘Pure Grit’ and COURAGE to take on our Enemies, both Foreign and Domestic,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social after curiously stopping short of backing him at the rally attended by both Brown and fellow GOP Senate contender Jeff Gunter.

The late-breaking endorsement rankled Gunter, a MAGA-minded businessman who was the former president’s hand-picked ambassador to Iceland. He had touted his close ties to Trump throughout the primary and pilloried Brown as a “RINO,” a pejorative for more centrist Republicans that Trump often deploys in intra-party showdowns. Gunter’s X.com profile photo features him and his wife flanking Trump, and his pinned post features a trio of photos with Trump with the words, “President Trump knows exactly who the America First candidate is in this race.”

The primary fight

Throughout the primary campaign, Gunter painted Brown as a hand-selected candidate of D.C. party elites, including outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump had faced pressure from National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, to endorse Brown over Gunter as the candidate better positioned to compete against Rosen in the general election.

One day before voters went to the polls, Gunter accused the NRSC and Trump world of trying to sabotage his campaign by threatening campaign consultants not to work for him. Without providing details, Gunter on Monday also tweeted that “the snakes are within” and the “NRSC McConnell swamp freak[ed] out” when Trump didn’t endorse Brown during the rally, and then a “big check” came in “from the swamp” to Trump’s presidential campaign before Trump wholeheartedly backed Brown in a Truth Social post late Sunday night.

“Sadly, the suspicions many of us had about ‘endorsements’ are being confirmed,” Gunter tweeted.

It was a high-stakes and rare attempt to counter a Trump endorsement, though he was careful not to blame Trump himself. Both the NRSC and a top Trump adviser aggressively lampooned Gunter’s allegations the morning of the primary.

“Numerous reputable vendors met with Jeff Gunter and decided he was not a serious candidate with no path to victory,” NRSC spokesman Mike Berg told Politico. “His insane rant proves their judgment was correct.”

Gunter miffed at not getting the endorsement

“He’s mad because he didn’t earn the endorsement of President Trump — I understand that, but that doesn’t give him the right … to cast aspersions or make up bullshit attacking President Trump and his campaign,” Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita remarked.

LaCivita, who also received a Purple Heart for wounds received in the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and has served as the NRSC’s political director, appeared to end any future relationship between Trump and Gunter. He pointedly noted that the former ambassador “should be mindful about poking the bear one too many times because I will promise you, you’ll get your ass bit.”

Jim Marchant, a former state assembly member who lost his 2022 race for Nevada secretary of state after promoting Trump’s contention that the 2020 election was stolen from him, also ran in this year’s Senate primary.

After Brown’s easy primary victory, Daines congratulated Brown, calling the West Point graduate an “American hero who is once again answering the call to serve our country.”

“Sam’s support for securing our border and getting inflation under control stands in strong contrast to his opponent’s record of rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s disastrous policies,” Daines added.

Congratulations for Brown

After Brown’s Tuesday primary victory, Rosen wasted no time playing up Brown’s ties to Trump, labeling him a “MAGA extremist who will say anything to get elected.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a new digital ad, echoed that accusation, immediately seizing on Brown’s statements in his 2022 campaign that Nevada needed to restart the nation’s nuclear waste storage at its Yucca Mountain facility, a controversial position in the state’s politics.

In late May, Brown reversed that statement, stating on X that he had spoken with engineers and experts on Yucca Mountain, and it “is abundantly clear that the project is dead.”

“As I’ve said before, it should not, and will not, be revived as a nuclear waste repository. As Nevada’s next U.S. Senator, I’ll stand with President Trump to oppose it,” he posted on X.

The Democrats’ ad also resurrected Brown’s past abortion comments, predicting that he would ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Brown has described himself as personally “pro-life,” and in a February sit-down interview with NBC News, he and his wife, Amy, shared her story of getting an abortion at age 24, before they met.

The couple, recognizing that Brown’s past abortion positions could be targeted in the general election, sought to recast the issue as complex and one in which politicians should lead with “compassion.” He also said he no longer supports a federal ban and would not vote for one if elected.

A costly race

Both parties plan to invest heavily in the race. This spring Rosen announced a $14 million ad reservation for the general election, which will run from July until November. Rosen’s campaign also invested early in April ads casting her as a centrist who worked to build consensus on both sides of the aisle.

Daines also said he plans to make Nevada a top priority. After Brown’s easy Tuesday win, the decorated Army veteran still has $2.5 million in his campaign account and can expect strong party investment. Democrats, in addition to defending seats in red states like West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio, also face tough contests in swing states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.