Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., handily won Nevada’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, setting her up for a difficult general election match come November in the swing state.
The incumbent Democrat managed to easily defeat her opponents, Troy Walker and Mike Schaefer, in the election.
November will be Rosen’s first reelection battle as a senator, and her seat is not guaranteed, with Nevada’s Senate race being moved to a “toss up” earlier this year by non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report.
Prior to running for Senate in 2017, she served as representative of Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District in the House. According to Rosen, late former Senate Majority Leader and Democratic powerhouse Harry Reid encouraged her to run for the Senate seat. She managed to defeat incumbent Senator Dean Heller, who was considered incredibly vulnerable at the time.
“He told me to think about it and that’s what I did when I came home to talk to my husband,” she told the Nevada Independent in 2017.
However, Rosen now appears to be in a similar position to that of Heller, trying to hang onto her seat in an ever-fluid battleground state. She also faces the difficulty of running alongside President Biden, who has managed to receive historically low approval ratings and is at risk of losing Nevada in the general election.
Rosen’s race is one of only three “toss-ups” in the Senate elections, alongside Ohio and Montana. Each race features a Democratic incumbent, putting the caucus at a significant disadvantage, given Republican incumbents are considered relatively safe.
She will face off against the winner of the much more competitive Republican Senate primary, who is expected to be front-runner former U.S. Army Capt. Sam Brown. Brown was recruited and encouraged to run by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and received a late endorsement from former President Trump just two days before the election. Trump had withheld his seal of approval throughout the primary campaign as Brown competed against former Trump official Jeff Gunter.
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