Indy Elections is The Nevada Independent’s newsletter devoted to comprehensive and accessible coverage of the 2024 elections, from the race for the White House to the bid to take control of the Legislature.

Editor's note: This newsletter was originally published on Aug. 29, 2023.

In today’s edition: Republican hopefuls have jumped at the chance to (potentially) challenge Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) next year — so many Republicans, in fact, that it’s become hard to count. With more than six months left before candidate filing makes that field official, reporter Sean Golonka gives us an early lay of the land. 

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We want to hear from you! Send us your questions, comments, observations, jokes, or what you think we should be covering or paying attention to. Email Jacob Solis, your humble newsletter editor, at [email protected]

Days until: 

• Presidential candidate filing opens: 34
• Nevada presidential primary: 161
• GOP presidential caucus: 163
• Election Day: 434

Battleground Senate race! Here we go again

Vying to challenge incumbent Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and disrupt Democrats’ recent strong run of electoral success in a historically purple state, eight candidates have entered the race for the GOP Senate nomination. They’re aiming to become the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Nevada since former Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) in 2012.

Just one of those challengers — Jim Marchant, a former Assemblyman who lost races in 2020 for Congress and in 2022 for secretary of state — has ever won an election in Nevada.

But months away from the June 2024 primary election, Sam Brown, a retired U.S. Army captain who suffered severe burns while deployed in Afghanistan, entered this year’s race with momentum from a second-place finish in last year’s Republican Senate primary and support from national Republicans. 

With no other statewide races on the ballot next year (sans ballot questions), the Senate race is likely to draw major spending. 

Nevada’s 2022 U.S. Senate race set records for campaign spending in the Silver State, as national Democratic groups and out-of-state donors helped boost Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) as she won a narrow 8,000-vote victory (less than 1 percentage point) over Republican former Attorney General Adam Laxalt. 

That race saw more than $200 million in combined spending from candidates and outside groups, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in U.S. politics.

In a closely divided U.S. Senate, where Democrats (and Democrat-aligned independents) hold a slim 51-49 majority, defending Rosen’s seat will be a key priority to maintaining that advantage. 

Even as Republicans are seeking to flip a trio of Democrat-held seats in red states — West Virginia, Montana and Ohio — Nevada is still considered a key battleground and a target for Republicans. Last year, voters in the Silver State re-elected Cortez Masto while lifting Republican Joe Lombardo to the governor’s mansion.

Here's more on Rosen and her Republican challengers:

Jacky Rosen refresher

In 2016, Rosen was a political unknown. The longtime Henderson resident and former software programmer served at the time as president of Congregation Ner Tamid, Nevada’s largest Reform synagogue. 

Recruited by then-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rosen ran and won a race that year for the swingy Congressional District 3 seat. Just six months into her term in the lower chamber, she announced a bid for Senate, again encouraged by Reid to make the run.

In 2018, Rosen achieved an unexpected 5-point win over the incumbent, Heller, and since then, she’s touted herself in the Senate as a bipartisan problem solver, unafraid to point to her ranking from the Lugar Center as one of the top 10 most bipartisan members of the Senate. Data from FiveThirtyEight shows Rosen was one of the least likely Democrats to vote in line with Biden’s position during the 2021-22 Congress, though she did so 92.5 percent of the time.

And despite Republicans’ propensity for attacking Nevada’s congressional Democrats for their ties to President Joe Biden — who remains unpopular in the state — Rosen isn’t shying away from the president. The Messenger’s Dan Merica explored Rosen’s embrace of recent Democratic legislative victories, from the Inflation Reduction Act to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, in a story on her candidacy that included confirmation she would happily campaign with Biden on the trail.

She’s also proven her fundraising strength, ending June with a record $7.5 million in the bank. 

Growing Republican field

Across the aisle, Brown and Marchant are leading the growing field of Republican challengers — most of whom are unlikely to be able to compete in fundraising with Brown, who has the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

An early poll commissioned by a pro-Brown super PAC found Brown, who moved to Nevada from Texas in 2018, in the lead in the primary field — though a larger share of voters were still undecided.

Most candidates in the race have similar positions on policy issues — from supporting Trump’s border wall to criticizing Democrats for excess government spending and inflation. Marchant, a prominent election denier and fervent Trump supporter, has framed the race as “MAGA vs. establishment,” a reference to the institutional support for Brown, who has declined to endorse Trump instead offering support for whichever candidate becomes the GOP nominee. 

My colleague Jacob Solis has a deeper dive into Marchant’s history and political positions from his run for secretary of state last year. To learn more about Brown, catch up on our interview with him from shortly after he announced his candidacy.

Also in the running is retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Tony Grady, who finished second in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor last year. Gabe Stern has more on Grady for AP News here. 

Jeff Gunter, a dermatologist and a former Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Iceland, also joined the fray earlier this month. He, like Marchant, has warmly embraced Trump, already donating thousands of dollars to the former president’s 2024 bid. For more, The Daily Beast and Politico have details on Gunter’s rocky tenure as a diplomat and history of Democratic voter registration in California. 

Others in the race include real estate agent Stephanie Phillips, attorney Ronda Kennedy and a pair of candidates who, like Brown, ran in the 2022 Senate race: retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Bill Conrad, who received 1.5 percent of the vote in the GOP primary, and businessman Barry Lindemann, who, as a nonpartisan, received 0.8 percent of the vote in the general election.

— Sean Golonka

What we’re reading and writing

Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates – the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead, by CNN’s Abby Turner and Andrew Kaczynski

Opponents are using the findings to call him “Scam Brown.” 

Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen's campaign drops thousands on fine dining and ritzy hotels, by the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky

Rosen’s visit to a three-Michelin star restaurant in New York City is also drawing attacks over campaign spending.

Lawmaker was hired to lead nonprofit, weeks after voting to give it $250K in funds, by the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Taylor Avery

The Las Vegas area lawmaker is in a swing district Republicans are targeting.

Lombardo says he’s ‘eager to help resolve’ Clark County teacher pay dispute, by Rocio Hernandez

Never underestimate the potential for any crisis to (eventually) become a campaign talking point.

The Lightning Round

📎Show me the money? — Under rules from the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, Senate candidates are required to file financial disclosure reports within 30 days after becoming a candidate. But for a pair of top Republican Senate candidates — Jim Marchant (announced in May) and Sam Brown (announced in July) — that deadline has come in gone, with neither candidate filing a report. Candidates can and often do file extensions for turning in their reports, which, in part, list sources of income, assets and liabilities. But the Senate’s database does not indicate such extensions for either candidate. Marchant’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment, while Brown’s campaign said in a statement, “The campaign is in communication with the committee, and the report is in the process of being completed.”

📺Among first ads from Biden, abortion stays top of mind — As part of a $25 million television and digital ad buy spread across 16 states (including Nevada), the Biden-Harris re-election campaign announced Friday their first post-debate ad would target Republicans on abortion — “the first of many,” per a campaign press release. The campaign also left the YouTube comment section open on the ad, which is certainly a choice. 

💻Tech reform highlighted in ad buys — Federal Communications Commission data shows that the advocacy nonprofit Project Liberty Action Network purchased a $289,000 8-week ad buy in Las Vegas focused on social media’s effect on kids and society. The ad highlights a lack of protections for children online and advocates for viewers to call their U.S. senator to pass the Kids Online Safety Act. The organization backing the ad is an offshoot of the nonprofit Project Liberty, which was founded by billionaire Frank McCourt. The ad marks a sign of tech reform becoming a 2024 campaign issue and will run from July 17 to Sept. 10, but sources connected to the ad indicate it could be extended.

And to ease you into the week, a few tweets (x’s?) that caught our eye: 

• I’m at the Trump trial. I’m at Super Tuesday. I’m at the combination Trump Trial Super Tuesday. 
• In case you wanted a preview of what the next year of legislative mailers is going to look like. 
• The president giving us one last piece of content on his way out of Tahoe.
• Hmmmmmm. 
• Is this a tweet or is this a TikTok? You decide. (Please follow our TikTok) 

We’ll see you next week.