I know some of you have been freaking out because of U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R. NV), the most vulnerable Republican Senator, has been leading Rep. Jacky Rosen (D. NV) in recent polls. When it comes to Nevada politics, there’s only one person I trust the most and that’s Jon Ralston. Ralston’s predictions have been right on the money and nobody understands Nevada politics better than him. Ralston did an interview with Slate Magazine and I think you’re going to like his answers a lot:
Isaac Chotiner: Where do you think the race currently stands, and why?
Jon Ralston: The Senate race is within the margin of error, one way or another. There are a couple reasons it is so close. One is that the Nevada electorate is as polarized as the national electorate, and so the names are less important than party identification. The other is that Dean Heller has done everything he can to try to lose the race, and the reason he is still in it is that Jacky Rosen is so unknown, and they have been able to create doubts about her because she is so unknown.
What has Heller done to try to lose the race?
He has had every position you can imagine on repealing Obamacare. He stood with the governor here and said he couldn’t do it, and then Trump publicly threatened him in a video you have probably seen that went viral, and then he [votes] for repeal. Health care is a huge issue in the election. And they have created a “senator spineless” meme about his position, and I think it has really hurt him.
Given all this, and given how vulnerable people thought Heller was, and national enthusiasm for Democrats, isn’t it surprising he isn’t down?
First of all, present company excepted, of course, you national media types and your telescopic view think that Heller has been dead. I have heard this for months and months and months, mostly because he is the only Republican incumbent running in a state that Hillary Clinton won. And because he makes so many mistakes. But it just isn’t that way. The race has been within the margin of error all year long and people need to remember Heller has never lost a race.
Plus, many of these recent polls are not credible polls, Isaac, and Nevada is very difficult to poll. I don’t think they mean much now, other than that one is ahead by a little. It’s all about how you model the electorate. We will know a lot more when we have real voting numbers to go by starting Saturday, and we will know whether turnout is up or down. If it is way up from 2014 here, Democrats will do well and Heller is in trouble.
Emphasis Mine.
Ralston also factors in that Democrats have been working hard to mobilize Hispanic voters to avoid another 2014 type wipe out and Harry Reid’s Machine has been very effective at registering voters. So we shall see what the early vote is like. He also credits Rosen for running a good a disciplined campaign and making this race about Trump and health care. Yes, Heller has never lost a race but the last Senate race between Catherine Cortez Masto and Joe Heck was so tight all the way to election day. So don't get discouraged, trust Ralston. By the way, speaking of Heller doing everything he can to lose this race:
Sen. Dean Heller pushed doctors at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Reno to adopt an experimental mental health treatment marketed by a company with ties to his office.
On a Friday night last December in his Reno office, Heller, a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, introduced VA officials to representatives from a health care startup called CereCare. The company markets an “off-label” method of treating addiction and post-traumatic stress, using electromagnetic brain stimulation.
The meeting came about because two of CereCare’s partners had a business connection to Heller’s senior aide in Reno. “We’ve known her for years,” one of the partners, Nino Pedrini, said of the aide, Glenna Smith. Pedrini and his partner have a separate joint venture with Smith’s former employer. “This was Glenna reaching out to us, knowing what we were doing, saying we think there’s a fit here where you folks can help our veterans,” Pedrini said.
Smith declined to answer questions about her role in arranging the meeting; she said she has never had a financial interest in Pedrini’s companies.
The Trump administration is encouraging the VA to use more alternative treatments, even though doctors and mental health experts caution against steering patients to procedures that haven’t been scientifically demonstrated to be safe and effective. The administration’s enthusiasm for such experimental treatments has opened the door to a flood of hopeful vendorslike CereCare.
Heller declined to answer specific questions about the meeting. In a statement, he said he “will never apologize for supporting policies that could lead to additional treatment options for Nevada veterans because no one who has served this country should be waiting for care once they return from combat.”
Heller co-sponsored a bill directing the VA to start a pilot program on CereCare’s procedure. Another of CereCare’s partners, Judi Kosterman, participated in drafting the legislation, she said in an interview. Kosterman described herself as CereCare’s expert on the procedure, and her business card identified her as “Dr.” She is not a physician and her doctorate is in education, according to official records.
The bill says it provides no additional funding, so the pilot program would come at the expense of other treatments that are already proven to be effective. For that reason, it drew opposition from Veterans of Foreign Wars, which represents 1.6 million members. “The VFW believes that VA must spend its already scarce health care resources on therapies that have shown promise or have a proven track record,” the organization told Congress. Other veterans groups, such as Amvets and Vietnam Veterans of America, supported the bill because they said the treatment is worth trying. The Senate veterans committee hasn’t voted on the bill.
The procedure that CereCare was pitching to the VA uses electrical scans of the brain and heart to detect a patient’s “intrinsic brainwave frequency” and find “the area of the brain in need of restoration,” according to materials brought to the meeting. CereCare then uses that data to apply electromagnetic pulses from a machine called a transcranial magnetic stimulator.
This procedure is off-label, meaning it uses equipment approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but in a way that is not approved by the agency. Off-label procedures are not uncommon or illegal, but the FDA has not signed off on their safety or effectiveness.
Don’t get complacent. Get involved and get ready to help pull off some big wins in Nevada. Click below to donate and get involved with Rosen and her fellow Nevada Democrats campaigns:
Jacky Rosen for U.S. Senate
Steve Sisolak for Governor
Kate Marshall for Lt. Governor
Aaron Ford for Attorney General
Dina Titus for Congress
Susie Lee for Congress
Steven Horsford for Congress
Nelson Araujo for Secretary of State
Zach Conine for Treasurer
Catherine Byrne for Controller