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LAS VEGAS – A candidate running for Senate in Nevada said Adam Laxalt, the leading Republican candidate going into Tuesday’s primary election, has “taken voters for granted.”
Sam Brown, a retired Army captain and Purple Heart recipient, trailed Laxalt in the polls by nearly 20 points leading up to election day, according to the Real Clear Politics average. However, Brown closed the gap considerably in the final weeks of the campaign.
Army veteran and first time Senate candidate Sam Brown is running for the GOP nomination in Nevada.
(Sam Brown Senate campaign)
“Adam Laxalt, who I’m running against in this primary, has taken the voters for granted and just expects people to vote for him based off of his prior service as an attorney general and the fact that he’s got big name endorsements,” Brown told Fox News.
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Both former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backed Laxalt, Nevada’s former attorney general. But Brown won the Nevada Republican Party’s endorsement in April.
Former Nevada attorney general Adam Laxalt on the campaign trail as he runs for the 2022 GOP Senate nomination in Nevada.
(Adam Laxalt campaign)
“Today’s all about turnout,” Brown told Fox News.
“Polls … are notoriously wrong here,” he added. “But our internal polls, which we’ve been tracking for a while, show that this thing’s going to go right down to the wire.”
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Nevada, considered a battleground state, could be pivotal in Republicans’ efforts to take control of the Senate.
Afghanistan War veteran Sam Brown, who’s running for Senate in Nevada.
(Courtesy Sam Brown)
Brown, who sustained serious injuries from a roadside bomb during a 2008 deployment in Afghanistan, said he would defend conservative principles in Washington, D.C., but would also advocate for Nevada.
“We’ve got some unique challenges here, between the amount of land that the federal government owns to the water crisis and drought,” Brown said. “Our economy is hurting just about as bad as any other state in the country.”
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“We’ve got some real issues that we need a champion in D.C., and that’s what I’ll be,” he continued.
Polls close in Nevada at 10 p.m. EST.
Laxalt’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Paul Steinhauser and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
