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It’s thanks to Sam Brown, a retired Army captain whose face bears the scars of an ambush of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, that he controlled to turn the race into one of the most competitive Republican primaries in the country. Leading a kind of rebellious campaign, Brown discovered good luck in describing Laxalt from tough Republican actors like Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas as a sign that he’s too entrenched in a party that can use new blood.
“Nevadans and working-class Americans want who will be a champion for them in DC,” Brown told TIME. “Career politicians have used themselves for long enough. “
Last month, in a blow to Laxalt’s campaign, the Nevada Republican Party subsidized Brown in the eight-vote primary. Brown also won several Republican opinion polls, adding in Clark County, the largest in the state. And it has raised over a million dollars in the last 3 quarters of fundraising. “It doesn’t seem like much to many states, but in Nevada it’s a lot of money,” Jon Ralston, a Nevada policy expert and executive director of The Nevada Independent, a news site, told TIME.
While Laxalt raised even more, Brown raised 4 times more small dollar donations and spent more on television advertising. There are symptoms that Laxalt members are getting nervous. The tough conservative political action fund Club for Grown is spending about $850,000 to run classified ads. attacking Brown until the primaries. ” You don’t go in and start spending a fortune on someone unless the guy you’re worried about,” Ralston says.
The hardening of the race is a sign of the political dynamics of conversion in Nevada, where the Republican base is thirsty for a foreigner. The Democrats lately the governor’s mansion, the state house and the two Senate seats. (Cortez Masto took his seat in 2017 from Democrat Harry Reid, who held it for 30 years. )
While Biden won Nevada in 2020, he and his party are now grappling with low approval ratings. National Republicans see a great opportunity to turn this blue seat into red, and many agree with Trump that Laxalt is his move.
“There are a lot of institutional obstacles that stand in the way of Sam Brown,” says a Republican representative who worked with Brown’s crusade and requested anonymity to speak more freely. Snowfall.
Laxalt, 43, was born in Reno but grew up primarily in the Washington, D. C. area. He attended a personal school in Alexandria, Virginia, and then earned a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Georgetown University. After graduating, he worked in the Bush administration for John Bolton, then undersecretary of state, and later for U. S. Senator John Warner of Virginia. He also served in the Marine JAG Corps, with stints in Italy and Iraq. In 2014, Laxalt left Washington for Reno, where he joined a law firm and ran for attorney general, and won. He held that position until 2018, when he lost a gubernatorial race to Democrat Steve Sisolak.
In 2020, Laxalt co-chaired Trump’s re-election crusade in the ground state. He turned out to be an unwavering MAGA infantryman, seeking to prevent the state from counting mail-in ballots in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. After Biden declared the state’s winner, Laxalt spread conspiracy theories about the result, claiming without evidence that there had been widespread voter fraud in Nevada. He then tried to have the electoral effects rejected.
“There is no doubt that they manipulated the elections,” Laxalt said last August. In fact, he has already signaled that he could preemptively challenge the final results of the 2022 election. Over the past year, Nevada has expanded mail-in voting by sending a mail-in survey to all eligible registered voters. Laxalt criticized mail-in polls for being plagued by fraud, even though there is no evidence that the voting approach carries more security risks.
While Laxalt’s efforts have won him Trump’s loyalty and helped him attract the attention of other GOP heavyweights, Brown and others argue he’s an imperfect candidate who can’t win in November.
“He’s his own problem,” says Brown. The Nevadan had the possibility of electing him governor in 2018 and we rejected him outright. He was the second-worst-performing Republican in 2018 across the state. is able to make a general choice here again.
However, until recently, few people in Nevada thought Republicans had a realistic option for Laxalt. But then, Brown burst onto the airwaves with a poignant 30-second TV ad that told a desirable story.
In the ad, as an election campaign, Brown explains how he was seriously injured in Afghanistan, when he was hit by an improvised explosive device and almost burned alive in a Taliban ambush. Today, his scarred face conveys a message of sacrifice and resilience. “After 30 surgeries, years of recovery, it turns out I’m hard to kill,” he says in the ad with a faint smile.
Brown, 38, was born in Arkansas into a military family. His father and brother also served in Afghanistan. Brown remembers his father telling him he couldn’t send him to school and encouraging him to apply to a military academy. He was accepted into West Point and later joined the army.
He had only been in Afghanistan for 65 days until the fatal attack. His battalion ambushed him. They faced oblique mortars and gun fire from artifacts from villages in the east and west, he said. He called as reinforcements and, on his way to the attack, his tank pierced an explosive. burning to death there,” he says. I fought as hard as I could, and I couldn’t. “
Then one of his comrades-in-arms came here and stored it. After that, he sent him back to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where he spent 3 years recovering. It was an experience, he says, that led to an epiphany. “We live in a culture where other people are afraid of suffering. If we all run away from it, then no one is there to give us hope.
“So how does this have an effect on me politically?”continues. ” I believe my life is there to serve others. “
While recovering in Texas, Brown first ran for an elected job in 2014, unsuccessfully seeking a seat in the House of Representatives. He moved to Reno 4 years later to work in an Amazon warehouse. There he started a family, started a business to provide physical fitness for veterans, and eventually laid the groundwork for his Senate candidacy.
His message as an outsider with a proven track record as a fighter turns out to resonate. In March, a ballot dropped 38 issues. Two weeks ago, about 15 numbers further back. His crusade says his internal vote brings him even closer.
Laxalt’s crusade attacked Brown as an opportunist. “Sam Brown is a political tourist who moved to Nevada because he lost a primary in the Texas State Assembly,” John Burke, Laxalt’s communications director, told TIME.
The crusade also attempted to discredit Brown’s message of emerging from humble backgrounds to serve the non-unusual good. “He comes from a circle of billionaire relatives who introduced two other NFL franchises to Ohio,” Burke said.
Brown’s great-grandfather was Paul Brown, co-discoverer of the Cleveland Browns and the team’s first coach. He also helped discover the Cincinnati Bengals. Brown’s crusade says that Paul’s fortune never passed to his early family, but to a remote relative. .
“He’s so desperate for force that he would lie about me and my family,” Brown said of Laxalt.
Amid political attacks, political differences rarely emerged. Both Laxalt and Brown strongly oppose abortion rights and tighter gun restrictions, and need to cut federal spending.
While Laxalt has established himself as a shameless trump companion, Brown is rarely exactly a trump critic. “I’m a big supporter of the America First agenda,” he says. In fact, he wouldn’t say in an interview that Biden was legitimately elected president. “I think Joe Biden is sitting in the White House lately and other people like Adam Laxalt, who claim to have insurmountable evidence, have not been able to deliver it to the public in a way that is beyond doubt. “
For number one voters, the race may come down more to identity issues, and they believe the politics logo has a greater chance of defeating Cortez Masto in November.
The incumbent is widely recognized as vulnerable, in part because of Biden’s low approval score in the state. According to FiveThirtyEight, she voted with the White House 95% of the time. Cortez Masto has also not been made visual enough in the state, mavens to say. ” It’s a workhorse, not a party horse,” says Ralston. “She drives her Supporters and Democratic Party strategists crazy because she didn’t go there to do things. “
But some Nevada Republican resources say Laxalt would be a less difficult opponent to defeat for Cortez Masto, given that his intelligent MAGA religion would likely alienate moderates and independents who voted against Trump in 2020.
“If I’m part of Masto’s team, I’d like Laxalt to get the nomination just because it’s a playbook I know,” the GOP representative says. “This is the playbook already executed. That’s for sure. We know how to compete against Brown? They want to devise a new strategy and a new message.
While Laxalt is a known amount, Brown would be a leap into the unknown for Republicans. That feeling of unpredictability is part of what got Brown fans excited about, and it may be exactly what’s helping him achieve one of the biggest nods of the season. .
“I seek to be a principled leader. Someone who needs our country to move forward,” Brown says. “We don’t want more of the same. “