We’ve been waiting months for this week’s primaries in Nevada because we feel, and have been stressing for a while now, that Nevada is likely the most important state in the 2022 midterms. With the June 14 primaries now settled in the Silver State, we’re bringing you a series of to-the-point, insightful, expansive, and connected pieces on what you should know about the Nevada elections and why they matter so much this cycle.

Nevada Senate Race | Nevada Congressional Races | Nevada Governor’s Race | Nevada’s Executive Branch | The Nevada Republican Party | Nevada and the 21st Century Democratic Party

For several months now, we’ve felt that incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is the most vulnerable senator running for reelection this cycle. Our case for her vulnerability when compared to other at-risk incumbents like Georgia’s Raphael Warnock or Arizona’s Mark Kelly is centered on three things unique to her race:

  1. The Democratic machine in Nevada, once the envy of the rest of the state party apparatuses, has collapsed due to infighting, losing its major power brokers, and a lack of national attention. Nevada went for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 2008 (though by increasingly narrow margins), causing many Democrats to take the state for granted. This is a mistake, as the state has shifted to the right and the Democratic machine only succeeded in delivering the state narrowly in many of the recent competitive elections. Unlike Arizona or Georgia, which have been steadily moving towards Democrats over the last 20 years, Nevada has been more stagnant. Its highly transient population, low rate of college education, and economic headwinds may be enough to overcome what is left of the declining Democratic organizing in the Silver State.

  2. She faces a relatively (emphasis on relatively) clean and widely-appealing opponent in Adam Laxalt. In contrast to Republican nominees in Georgia and potentially Arizona, Laxalt is a strong candidate. A former Attorney General (he succeeded Cortez Masto in the role, actually), Laxalt is not a nobody who has never held a prominent statewide position before. He has name recognition in a very transient state as he is the grandson of Nevada’s former Republican senator and governor (and “first friend” to President Ronald Reagan) Paul Laxalt and the son of former Republican senator from New Mexico, Pete Domenici.Born out of an extramarital affair between Domenici and the elder Laxalt’s daughter, Adam’s lineage was not made public until 2013. The really weird part is that Domenici and Paul Laxalt were serving together in the Senate at the time of Adam’s birth. Domenici slept with his coworker’s daughter! He coalesced support from Republicans early on as well, avoiding a bruising primary many of the GOP candidates this cycle will have to face. This pits what is essentially a generic Democrat against a generic Republican in a state that is right on the margin in a year that favors the GOP.

  3. There are many competitive races up-and-down the ballot, too. Nevada is blessed with not one competitive federal race, but four. This is thanks to the risky (but efficient) congressional map Democrats have drawn for the next few cycles which put three Las Vegas-area seats right on the margin so that Democrats handily sweep them in a neutral or lean-Demorat year. In a Republican-leaning year (which is what 2022 looks to be), this makes for three Democratic incumbents who will have to face back intense challenges in order to hold on to their seats. Not only that, but its other state offices are incredibly competitive this cycle too.

All of this adds together to make Nevada’s Senate race not just the most competitive, but arguably the most important race in the entire 2022 election, both because it means holding on to a seat that must stay in Democratic hands if they want to hold the Senate, but also for what it means for the party going forward.

Nevada is struggling. It suffered disproportionately during the pandemic and its COVID-19 policies remained more stringent longer than in other Democrat-controlled states. The state, like much of the Mountain West, is being hammered by high gas prices and higher inflation. Cortez Masto may have a large cache of funds, but Nevada is primed to punish Democrats for governing over this era of economic and societal tumult, and Laxalt is digestible enough that he is more likely than not to win this election.