With months to go before the 2022 primary, speculation on another bid for the White House from former President Donald Trump has surged in recent weeks, as the Republican Party continues to navigate a political environment still shaped by his absence. 

Trump has continued to loom at the periphery of the campaign trail, telling a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month that, “We did it twice, and we’ll do it again. We’re going to be doing it again a third time.” 

As many Republicans have sought to use their support of Trump or their direct links to his campaign or administration as a boost to their own nascent campaigns, the likelihood of a possible Trump bid in 2024 presents a question for Republican candidates: Do they think he should enter the field again? 

Though he has openly supported Trump — including volunteering for the 2020 campaign — Republican Senate hopeful Sam Brown left that up to Trump. 

“That's for President Trump to figure out on his own, and what's best for him and the country,” Brown said at a campaign filing event last week. 

Opposite Brown, former attorney general and Senate candidate Adam Laxalt — the Trump campaign’s state campaign co-chair in 2020 — has openly and repeatedly tied his bid to the former president. The former president formally endorsed Laxalt late last year, and Laxalt and his surrogates have otherwise been quick to point to his relationship with Trump on the trail. 

At a campaign event in Winnemucca last year Laxalt told a crowd:

“We need to go win the presidency and we’ve got to get a president — you know, obviously Donald Trump spent every single day trying to drain the swamp and trying to fight back against Washington,” Laxalt said. “At the end of the day, that swamp was deep and that swamp was powerful.”

And in a statement sent last week, Laxalt said: “I have President Trump’s endorsement and he has mine for 2024.”

To debate or not to debate

After more than a week of sparring directly and indirectly over Twitter and media interviews, GOP Senate frontrunners Adam Laxalt and Sam Brown could appear in not one, but two debates over the next two months. 

The first, moderated by Sam Shad of Nevada Newsmakers, will happen in Reno on April 7. Part of a nightlong dinner that also bills interviews with several congressional candidates, the debate is sponsored by several conservative organizations — Red Move Nevada, the Sierra Republican Club and the Nevada Commonwealth — and may mirror the recent multi-candidate GOP gubernatorial debates.

However, it’s unclear if either Brown or Laxalt have agreed to appear in Reno for the dinner, and major Republican candidates for governor — namely Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo — have avoided such events over the last six months. 

What may be more widely viewed is a planned televised debate at 8 a.m. Monday, May 9. That debate will again be hosted by Shad, this time as part of the program Nevada Newsmakers and co-moderated by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Victor Joecks. 

Both Laxalt and Brown have signaled they will appear in this debate, though it is unclear how many other candidates will join them. Shad did not clarify what criteria would be used to allow candidates into the debate, nor how many candidates had confirmed when asked over email. 

The details of that debate quickly came under fire by Brown, who reiterated a call for a one-on-one debate on prime time television. Brown posted a video to Twitter Thursday saying Laxalt was “afraid to get in the arena, with me, in front of you.”

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.