RENO, Nevada — Should Democrats make the 2022 elections about the threat to democracy? Or should they focus instead on other issues like abortion and the economy? It’s a question of strategy that’s been hotly debated this year.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is one Democrat who hasn’t shied away from putting the 2020 election conspiracy and those who support the “big lie” front and center in her bid for a second term in office. The Nevada senator spent the majority of her remarks at an event with GOP supporters here on Friday recalling how election falsehoods led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
”There should be consequences for people who undermine our democracy and peddle the big lie and conspiracy theories and who are only out for themselves on the backs of other people, including Nevadans. So it is time for us to get out and show who we are as a state and that we will not tolerate them,” Cortez Masto said on the opening weekend of early voting in the state.
The ironic twist of fate for Cortez Masto is that she finds herself in serious danger of losing to an election denier who pushed vote fraud conspiracies on behalf of Donald Trump during the 2020 election. Adam Laxalt, the GOP Senate nominee and a former state attorney general, has repeatedly cast doubt on President Joe Biden’s victory and has already suggested he might challenge the results of his own election race this year. Polls have shown a virtual dead heat between Cortez Masto and Laxalt.
This Senate race isn’t the sexiest in the country but it might be the most pivotal: Not only will it help determine which party controls the upper chamber next year, but also it will help answer how much U.S. voters actually care about the future of their democracy.
Polls have shown that other issues matter as much or more to Nevadans: Inflation, crime, gun policy and immigration all ranked as top items in a recent CBS poll of Nevadans. But they won’t get debated by the Senate candidates on live television: Neither Cortez Masto nor Laxalt seem willing to risk making a misstep on stage in such a closely contested election.
The political momentum seems to have shifted away from Democrats in the closing weeks of the 2022 campaign. The average price of gas is on the rebound upward and inflation has proved more stubborn than economists had hoped. Republicans are optimistic that kitchen table issues — and an onslaught of scary-sounding ads about crime — will carry them to victory in Nevada and elsewhere around the country.
Cortez Masto made history in 2016 when she was elected as the first Latina senator amid high voter turnout and the showdown between Hillary Clinton and Trump. Democrats also did well in Nevada in the 2018 midterms thanks to a backlash to Trump’s policies. Trump isn’t on the ballot this year and President Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater, a key obstacle as Democrats seek to get as many people engaged in a midterm election as possible.
Nevada Democrats are again relying on the famed political machine associated with Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to turn out the vote on Election Day, including hundreds of Latino and union activists. The influential Culinary Union claimed to have launched the “largest” get-out-the-vote operation over the weekend, knocking on 610,000 doors and engaging in over 100,000 conversations with voters.
“The biggest corporations have been using the pandemic to price gouge working families but we are fighting back and we have a plan to win,” Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Union, said in a statement. “No voter believes Republicans are going to take on massive Wall Street landlords who are stealing our homes and ruining our neighborhoods.”
But there are nagging questions over Democratic performance among Hispanic voters in Nevada and around the country. Trump overperformed with Hispanic voters in 2016 and 2020. During special elections earlier this year, Republicans made surprising gains in heavily Hispanic areas in Texas. If that trend is replicated in other parts of the Southwest, it could mean even bigger Democratic losses in November.
Nevada voters were able to cast their ballots beginning Saturday and the early signs weren’t encouraging for Democrats. Turnout was “way down” in Clark County, the Democratic stronghold anchored by the city of Las Vegas, according to veteran Nevada journalist Jon Ralston. But that may have been due to inclement weather or simply because more people are voting by mail this election.
Laxalt, the son of former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and the grandson of U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt, last ran for office in 2018, when he lost the governor’s race to Democrat Steve Sisolak. He’s a conservative with the backing of both the GOP establishment and Trump. But his embrace of the 2020 election conspiracy was a step too far for prominent Republicans who became disillusioned by the direction of their party in recent years and are now backing Cortez Masto.
“He is busy pushing lies, conspiracies, and defending the absolutely indefensible. This is irresponsible behavior that puts our democracy at risk and is not something we should accept from our elected representatives or those that are seeking office,” businessman Robert Cashell Jr., the son of former Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, said Friday.
Cashell told HuffPost he agreed with Republicans who fault Democrats for spending too much money and who say that has exacerbated inflation. But he suggested that “too much irresponsible rhetoric” coming from GOP politicians is a determining factor in how he is voting in the Senate election.
Former Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley, meanwhile, called Laxalt “unfit to serve” given his response to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Again and again, Adam Laxalt has said nothing” about injured and killed police officers at the Capitol, Haley said. “Instead of speaking up and supporting public safety like he professes, Laxalt said the attack was exaggerated by the media.”
Laxalt said he believes the “very few” who broke laws during the Capitol attack should be prosecuted. But he also thinks Democrats are exaggerating the situation.
“This day was not the darkest day in American history, not even close,” he said earlier this year.
Cortez Masto described it in a different way. She said she personally witnessed the “total destruction” at the Capitol after hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
“Trump paraphernalia everywhere,” Cortez Masto recalled on Friday. “Offices turned upside down. My Capitol office survived, but the two next to me were broken into. Furniture ripped apart and flipped upside down, TVs pulled off the wall. They were determined to not only destroy the Capitol — the people’s house — but to try to stop what I took an oath of office to do.”
She then told a vivid story about the moment she first realized something was wrong that day: running into a Capitol police officer in a restroom, flushing pepper spray out of his eyes. Police officers later described a “medieval” battlefield playing out on the Capitol grounds, featuring hand-to-hand combat. Five people died and more than 140 officers were injured.
“This is about standing up for our true democracy and calling out those who don’t and holding them accountable,” she said. “The best way to do that right now is through our votes.”