Even after 8 years in politics, it seems like no one knows the real Sen. Jacky Rosen. She seems to hold her cards close to the vest. Here is as much of her background as I could find from her 2016 run:
Jacky Rosen easily grabbed the Democratic nomination for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, but she remains a political unknown to most Southern Nevadans.
A longtime computer programmer and consultant, Rosen had zero political experience before throwing her name in the hat in January to replace outgoing Rep. Joe Heck, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Outside of the local Jewish community, most Clark County voters know little about the president of the Congregation Ner Tamid who U.S. Sen. Harry Reid personally recruited to the race.
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Rosen checks some key boxes for Nevada Democrats: She’s pro-choice and pro-immigration, believes in the need for a “higher livable wage,” and is a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. She has the backing of key figures such as Reid and former longtime Rep. Shelley Berkley. Rosen is also championing better protection of senior citizens, and preserving their access to Social Security and Medicare.
Rosen has been dealt a new hand in 2024 with a different type of challenger in Sam Brown. The question for Rosen is whether she has the winning hand in this election game of poker.
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Jacky Rosen for NV-SEN
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What’s the Big Idea?
NV-SEN results in 2022.
THIS SENATE RACE IS RATED AS LEANS DEMOCRATIC, with an R+1 PVI
Nevada is the most accurate bellwether state in the nation now that Ohio and Missouri have lost that status with their frog march to the right. Nevada has voted for the winner of the presidential election EVERY time since 1912 except for 1976 and 2016. That is an amazing record!
It used to be the mining unions that held the political strength for the Democratic Party, while the ranchers voted heavily Republican. When Las Vegas started growing, the political calculus changed as more and more of the vote got concentrated in the Las Vegas metro area as the state grew rapidly. As a Sun Belt state, it generally leaned Republican before the Obama years, with Clinton the only one to win the state thanks to Ross Perot.
The 2008 financial crisis brought a HUGE change to the state, with Obama easily winning the state and every Democratic presidential candidate following him doing so as well. The SEIU and Culinary Workers Union form the core of the vaunted (former) Sen. Harry Reid Machine, which has adeptly won many statewide races that have been written off by pundits. However, Nevada is creeping back to the GOP as it voted to the right of the nation in 2020. Biden only won the state 50.1% to 47.7%.
Jacky Rosen used the 2018 blue-wave election for her first win over Sen. Dean Heller by a 50.4% to 45.4% result. This five-point margin was rather large for a race in Nevada and 2022 proved that to be the case. The other Democratic Senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, only won re-election by 48.8% to 48.0% or about 8000 votes.
It’s why I am ignoring the rosy polls and most pundits on this race because it will be a fight to keep it. For an accurate take on what is happening on the ground in Nevada, I’d follow Jon Ralston on social media. He’s a bit dramatic but there’s no one who understands Nevada politics better than him. #WeMatter
Nevada has been one of the fastest growing states in the nation for most of my lifetime. It is said that the turnover in the state, known as transience, is also amongst the highest in the nation. That means that with each election, the politicians have to reintroduce themselves to the electorate. The voters can be up to a quarter or a third different from the last election percentage wise. Must be a nightmare to phone bank! Luckily, the Democratic Party relies on the Reid Machine to turn out its voters.
Here’s where this Nevada race will be won.
- Clark County: The Las Vegas area counts for roughly three-quarters of the population of the state, so it is critical for our side to hit a certain benchmark percentage wise AND vote wise or we are screwed. Luckily, the vaunted Reid Machine works here through the SEIU and Culinary Unions to turn out the casino worker vote. Our party MUST hit around a 10% spread and a 90,000-100,000 vote lead to offset the rest of the state.
- Washoe County: This is the other metropolitan area in Nevada, with Reno being increasingly critical in our calculus to win the state. To be honest, Washoe County saved our bacon in both 2020 and 2022 because we BARELY hit the benchmark in Clark County. It is important that this swing county is won by Democrats these days. If we are losing this county even a little bit, we have lost Nevada.
Here’s where we need to keep the margins down, or we lose.
- Douglas County and Carson City: These areas by Lake Tahoe are what keep the 2nd district of Nevada red. Douglas County votes for the GOP by over a 30-point margin and Carson City gives about 54% of their vote to the Republicans. They are large enough in population to merit special concern and keeping down the margins here is important.
- Nye County: This county bears watching, because the Pahrump area is the best hope for Republicans regaining a foothold in this state. The area is filling up fast and is one of the fastest growing in the state. The inhabitants seem to be strong GOP voters, likely transplants from California. If this trend continues, the delicate balance of the state could be upended.
- The Cow Counties: This is pretty much everywhere else in the state, and we lose these areas by lopsided margins. This is Cliven Bundy country, where the native Nevadans are increasingly distrustful of government and of the Las Vegas and Reno metro areas and their transplants. Supercharged turnout from the cow counties is NOT a good sign for us.
Sen. Jacky Rosen: A Bipartisan Poker Face
Sen. Jacky Rosen dons a bipartisan poker face that seems to insulate her from partisan attacks.
Sen. Jacky Rosen was born in Chicago in 1957. Her mom stayed at home while her Korean War veteran father ran a car dealership. Rosen would go on to attend the University of Minnesota and graduate with a degree in psychology. Shortly thereafter, the family would move to Las Vegas and Rosen would work odd jobs to keep afloat.
Despite having no political experience and few connections to the Harry Reid machine, the former Senator plucked her out of obscurity to run for Nevada’s 3rd district in 2016. She won the primary thanks to the vaunted Reid machine and also leaned on it to win the general election against Danny Tarkanian.
Rosen would serve one term in the US House before setting her sights on the Senate seat held by Sen. Dean Heller. Once again, Reid promoted her candidacy and cleared the primary field for her. She would use the 2018 blue-wave election to win 50%-45% over the incumbent Republican. Her meteoric rise still is shocking to me, going from a nobody to Democratic Senator in less than five years.
Rosen may have had gambler’s luck on her side at first but her political instincts have been top-notch since then. She straddles the line between liberal and moderate adeptly. Her bipartisan poker face is quite evident by the fact that she voted for Trump’s stated agenda 34% of the time while he was President but also voted for Biden’s agenda 96% of the time when the Democrat was in charge.
One of the issues Rosen cashes in her chips on his health care. She ran on protecting the ACA in 2018 and has been looking to improve health outcomes ever since. She even promotes Medicaid as an alternative people can buy into so that private insurance companies have competition in the marketplace. It is clear that Rosen is all-in on this issue!
Another issue where Rosen has a strong hand is abortion rights. She has voted consistently to protect abortion, contraception, and IVF from GOP restrictions. She is running with an abortion rights amendment and has endorsed its passage. That should boost her chances in this critical swing state.
Gun safety is another issue where the cards are in her favor. She was in Congress when the deadliest mass shooting occurred at the Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. She has consistently pushed for an assault weapons ban along with other gun safety measures to combat the scourge of gun violence plaguing this nation.
Rosen should be holding the winning hand when it comes to this Senate race. Her careful moderation combined with an inoffensive status gives her the perfect bipartisan poker face to win.
Sam Brown: Texas Fold ‘Em
Sam Brown is a transplant from Texas trying to get Nevada to agree with his far-right politics.
Sam Brown was born in Arkansas and is 40 years old. He was born into a military family as his father and brothers all served in the armed forces as well. Brown graduated from the US Military Academy in 2006. He also holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University. Brown was deployed to Afghanistan where he suffered severe burns to 30% of his body from an IED. That earned him the nickname “Burning Man” in both the military and in the rehabilitation center.
Brown was selected as a part of some groundbreaking medical procedures. He used a virtual reality simulation while undergoing a painful physical therapy process. He would return to Afghanistan to rally troops in 2012 after retiring full-time from the Army. He founded Palisade Strategies to provide critical medications to veterans that fell through the cracks at the VA or at clinics. He sold this business in 2022.
Sam Brown ran for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 2014. He finished in third place in the GOP primary with 27.5% of the vote. During this campaign, he endorsed a (then) radical 20-week abortion ban. He was also caught making misogynistic comments about one of the other candidates in that race. Brown clearly has issues with women and has tried to moderate in this area. He claims not to support a national abortion ban and has tried to use his wife’s abortion story to soften his image.
Brown ran for the other Nevada Senate seat in 2022. He finished second in the primary behind Adam Laxalt. Despite being the selection of local Republicans, the Trump-backed Laxalt won instead. He received 34% of the vote compared to Laxalt’s 56% of the vote. It put him in the driver’s seat for winning the primary election in 2024 which he did in a landslide.
Other than abortion, Brown has a weak hand on other issues. Despite Nevada being one of the worst states for education outcomes, his solution for this problem is vouchers, charter schools, and homeschooling. Like others in the GOP, he accuses teachers of “indoctrination” and would give (conservative) parents the right to veto the curriculum for every student.
Brown also holds the cards stating that he is a fan of the 2nd amendment and will “always protect it”. He tries to dodge the issue of gun safety entirely but it is clear that he is unlikely to support enhanced background checks, red flag laws, or any other measures to try and make Americans safer from the gun violence epidemic.
Finally, Brown holds another weak card by whining about Big Tech censoring fascists and “cancel culture” being the rot that prevents America from being great. It’s a lot of claptrap — especially since the most censorious people are the fascists and conservatives are the leaders in “cancel culture”. Instead of attacking Big Tech for imagined censorship, Brown should hold the line at breaking up the monopolies.
Brown should fold this hand because he is weak on the issues that matter. He’s trying to bluff his way into a Senate seat but Nevadans cannot afford to take this gamble.
How Can You Help?
Money isn’t an issue in this race. Sen. Jacky Rosen has been raising oodles of it She’s raised nearly $31M so far, and that is before the Q3 report which will come out any day now. Sam Brown has raised $9M in contrast, again with the caveat that he hasn’t released fresh numbers after the deadline.
There is a change in independent expenditures in this race.
What this means is the ads that have largely propped up Sam Brown are going away while the ads for Sen. Jacky Rosen are staying. Sam Brown will effectively be on his own except for the clumsy hybrid ads (which are usually terrible).
The vaunted Harry Reid machine is kicking into overdrive right now. There is a massive virtual phone banking effort going on almost every day now. Phone banking isn’t as effective due to the transience of the population but it still is a way that everyone in the nation could help out in a critical swing state. There are so many efforts that I’m not going to link to them all. I would inquire at a local campaign office to see what the best way to help Sen. Jacky Rosen is.
Sen. Jacky Rosen has the winning hand in Nevada at this time. All polling, even from GOP polling outfits, shows her with a healthy lead. She’s an inoffensive incumbent with a bipartisan poker face. However, I believe that the race will wind up closer than the polling suggests. A lot of the undecided voters are ones that have stated they will vote for Trump. That’s why I have her rated as the 6th most likely incumbent to lose her Senate seat this year.
Sam Brown is placing all his chips on red right now. He’s hoping a hardline immigration message combined with a softer tone on abortion will be the winning agenda items for this race. It’s a strategy many GOP candidates are trying with varying degrees of success. He has to hope that there are some late breaking events in his favor or he is on a path to losing this race.
The question for Sen. Jacky Rosen is whether she will continue to hold the winning hand after all of the votes come in.
Jacky Rosen for NV-SEN
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