As the clock ticks down ahead of the June primary, the political advertising machine is revving up.  

That includes two ads over the last two weeks from Republican Sam Brown — a relative unknown in Nevada who has emerged as a dark horse challenger to presumptive Republican nominee Adam Laxalt, following several successive quarters of more than $1 million in fundraising. 

The first ad, titled “Duty,” tells not only the story of how Brown was severely wounded by a bomb during a tour in Afghanistan, but that after years of recovery, “turns out I’m hard to kill.”

The second, “People’s Agenda,” not only takes aim at Cortez Masto and Laxalt as “elite” politicians — a parallel of some criticisms of Laxalt both from Democrat-aligned PACs and media across the political spectrum — but casts Brown as the face of “new conservative leadership.”

The ad also lists a handful of Brown’s policy priorities, including several that have long been pillars of Republican political orthodoxy: Border security, voter ID, opposing “inflationary spending and debt” and “classrooms that teach, not indoctrinate.” 

Opposite the GOP race, incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto has been blanketing the airwaves since early March with a trio of ads centering both on her own biographical story, as well as touting money sent to small businesses and the hospitality industry as part of federal COVID relief packages. 

Also in March, Laxalt released an ad titled “Something Big,” touting an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. 

On the trail …

As Ketanji Brown Jackson made history last as the first Black woman confirmed to the Supreme Court, the barrage of attacks against her from Nevada’s Republican Senate hopefuls continued apace. 

That included former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who said in a statement last week that Cortez Masto had stood “blindly with the left wing of her party” in supporting Jackson’s confirmation. 

“Judge Jackson is certainly a leftist jurist who will support the rewriting of the Constitution from the bench,” Laxalt wrote in a statement. 

Cortez Masto joined all other Senate Democrats and three Republicans in voting to confirm Jackson. 

Laxalt’s statement also hit at Jackson as “soft-on-crime,” especially sex crimes and pedophilia, a follow-up to his attack earlier this month that Jackson was a “pedophile apologist.” Some, including the White House, have noted wide similarities between the criticisms of Jackson and the baseless conspiracies of the QAnon movement.  

Brown, meanwhile, criticized Jackson for not openly opposing “court packing,” or the expansion of the Supreme Court beyond nine justices. 

“Catherine Cortez Masto pretends to be a moderate in Nevada then flies to Washington to rubber stamp Biden’s left-wing agenda,” Brown wrote in a tweet thread last week. “Nevadans don’t want another Supreme Court justice who will interpret the law like a liberal activist instead of a jurist.” 

Cortez Masto said in a statement of her own that Jackson “brings an outstanding record to the Supreme Court,” and that she was “proud to have voted for her historic confirmation.” 

And as the election draws closer, some surrogates are booking flights to Nevada. Later this month, Laxalt is set to share the stage with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at events in both Northern and Southern Nevada. In an interview with radio host Kevin Wall, Laxalt said the stops will revolve in large part around “energy independence,” and look to tie Biden and Cortez Masto to high gas prices. 

A national spotlight comes to Nevada

In the New York Times, three pieces in three weeks with headlines including “Democrats worry what happens in Nevada won’t stay in Nevada” and “Republicans sense an opportunity in Nevada’s restless Latino voters” underscore the national media narrative around Cortez Masto’s re-election bid. 

A major theme: That the re-alignment of working class voters, especially non-white working class voters, away from the Democratic bloc in 2022 could be enough to spell doom for incumbents in a year when President Joe Biden’s approval remains steadfastly underwater and economic signals remain mixed. 

At NPR, Cortez Masto was ranked third this week on the list of most-vulnerable seats, behind only an open contest in Pennsylvania and the bid by Sen. Raphael Warnock to hold on to his seat in Georgia. 

“Republicans are more bullish about their chances here than in any other race,” said NPR’s Domenico Montenaro. 

These are the first in what will likely be an entire cycle of national attention on a senator who for years has preferred a local spotlight. May we hope that the state of Nevada is not buried by “what happens here” headlines in the process. 

Poll Watch: By the time you read this newsletter, the Reno Gazette-Journal will have released its poll, conducted by Suffolk University, of results in the Senate, governor and more. 

Happy FEC filing week to all who celebrate: The quarterly campaign finance filing deadline will hit this Friday, giving us the most comprehensive picture of campaign coffers ahead of the most critical eight weeks of the entire primary election. Some candidates have already revealed their quarterly hauls, but stay tuned for all the details in our roundup next week. 

Editor’s Note: This story appears in Indy 2022, The Nevada Independent’s newsletter dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the 2022 election. Sign up for the newsletter here.