Over these two weeks starting February 21, we are profiling the five most vulnerable incumbent senators up in 2022. We began with New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Arizona’s Mark Kelly, and Georgia’s Raphael Warnock. In this piece, the most vulnerable senator up for reelection in 2022: Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto.

When Democratic Senate leader and Nevada legend Harry Reid announced he would not seek reelection in 2016, eyes immediately turned towards the state’s former attorney general, Catherine Cortez Masto. Reid endorsed her and put his entire political weight (the “Reid machine”) into channeling her through the nomination and to a general election victory, making her the first Latina senator in American history, one of the rare bright spots in what was an otherwise bleak night for national Democrats. 

Six years later, without Reid and without a functioning party apparatus at the state level, Cortez Masto is on her own. But she’s off to a strong start. In her reelection launch she emphasized kitchen table issues like healthcare, economic recovery, and the disproportionate suffering Nevada has felt from the pandemic. She’s raised a large amount of money, more than any Senate candidate in Nevada has had before by this point in the cycle. But Nevada is a swingy state, and one that seems perpetually on the margin. In many ways, it’s the anti-Florida – elections always seem close (and they are, usually decided by just a few points) but ultimately they have pretty consistently gone for Democrats in the last few cycles. But the Reid machine has weakened and Republicans have reengaged in the Silver State. 

The chaotic Republican primary for governor has overshadowed what has been a relatively quiet competition on the Senate side, and Cortez Masto’s successor as attorney general, Adam Laxalt, is a shoe-in to challenge her in November. Endorsed by Trump, whose campaign he served as state co-chair for in Nevada, and pontificating the same election conspiracies that dogged the 2020 election for months after the state went for Biden, Laxalt is almost an outlier this cycle for his “normalcy.” He held a prominent statewide position, he’s got the full GOP behind him, he’s not up against a serious primary challenge, and he has name recognition.1He 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! This is what sets the Nevada race apart from Arizona’s and Georgia’s. All three are competitive, and all three boast incredibly strong candidates from Democrats in what are toss-up or Republican-leaning states – but Warnock and Kelly will likely face weak opponents; Cortez Masto may not have that luxury. 

Polls are all over the place and the gubernatorial election is likely to turn out a lot of fury too given that Sisolak’s pandemic policies have been out of step with how purple the state is. So all we can really go on at this point is our analysis of these fundamentals: a strong opponent, a state that hasn’t conclusively trended one way or another in the last six years, and a strong incumbent. Democrats are lucky they did not take this site’s advice (no matter how good it was) to bring Cortez Masto on as Biden’s running mate, because the strongest asset they have in the 2022 Senate election is a candidate with her experience, local engagement, and fundraising prowess. They (and she) are going to need it all.