In the US midterm elections, it all comes down to Nevada

Forget Dr Oz, John Fetterman, Herschel Walker and Stacey Abrams. The future of the country – from the economy to Latino voters to abortion and democracy itself – will be decided in the Silver State, says Eric Garcia

The former US president Barack Obama is on the campaign trail in Nevada to help the Democratic candidates (AFP via Getty)

With less than a week to go, many observers of the 2022 midterms have kept their eyes fixed on Georgia’s Senate race between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock. Walker, the Republican candidate, is a former University of Georgia running back who stands accused of pressuring women he knew into abortions even as he publicly supported abortion bans with no exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Senator Warnock, his Democratic opponent, is the preacher at Martin Luther King Jr’s old pulpit. Elsewhere in the same state, the governor Brian Kemp faces a rematch against progressive superstar Stacey Abrams.

Or pundits have turned their focus to Pennsylvania, where former TV doctor Mehmet Oz and the literally larger-than-life John Fetterman are squaring off for the state’s Senate race. But while liberal Democrats are fretting about losing Warnock and Republicans are worrying they might lose their Senate seat in Pennsylvania, your reporter in Washington DC is keeping an eye on Nevada.

Nevada doesn’t get as much attention as other states, because outside of Las Vegas and Reno, it is largely seen as rural and desert – and it only has six electoral votes. But that doesn’t mean it is unimportant. In fact, I’ve been keeping an eye on the state ever since the Nevada caucuses in the 2020 Democratic primary, when eventual President Joe Biden posted a weak second place against Bernie Sanders. Sanders won thanks to an aggressive Latino outreach in the state.

I began telling anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn’t) that this meant Biden could underperform with Latino voters in the presidential election, too. This would be borne out when Donald Trump improved his margin with the group and Biden barely won Nevada in 2020 – to say nothing of Trump’s strength in south Texas and Miami, where there are also high amounts of Latino voters.

Now, in the 2022 midterms, Nevada faces perhaps the tightest and perhaps most consequential races with Adam Laxalt facing Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto; Governor Steve Sisolak facing Republican Sheriff Joe Lombardo; and election-denying Republican Jim Marchant facing Democrat Cisco Aguilar.

The Covid pandemic decimated the state’s gambling and hospitality industry. As a result, many working class Latinos are still feeling economic pain – to say nothing of inflation, which eats more out of working people’s salaries. Republicans hope that will be enough for Latinos to push out the Democrats in the state. In their messaging, they have consistently tried to tie Cortez Masto to Biden and to suggest that she is bad for the everyday Latino voter, despite her being the first Latina Senator.

As more and more non-college-educated Latino voters question their allegiance to the Democratic Party, the state is a testing ground for how this vital and growing bloc can sway elections. And it could be a bellwether for whether Republicans have a shot in the presidential election in 2024.

For her part, Cortez Masto has hoped to make the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade a major campaigning issue, since Nevada codified abortion rights in 1990. Of course, that codification implies that abortion rights are important to Nevadans. But it also might mean that it’s not seen as a serious issue by voters, considering they know reproductive freedom is guaranteed in their state. Republicans like Lombardo, for his part, are seeking to make crime a major issue.

Meanwhile, Laxalt has pushed Trump’s big lie about the election. While it’s true that the state’s current Republican secretary of state Barbara Cegavske certified the election, the current GOP nominee Marchant spoke at a QAnon event and has said: “We’re going to do our best to get rid of these ridiculous universal mail-in ballots.”

All this is to say that more than any other state, I’ll be watching Nevada next Tuesday.

Yours,

Eric Garcia

Senior Washington correspondent