A ground level view of what really happened in the 2022 Nevada Senate election

Matt Yglesias, an often intriguing, though grumpy, Democratic DC pundit, is a fan.

One of the 2022 results that surprised me was Catherine Cortez Masto’s successful re-election in Nevada.

He cites a Data for Progress study which claims that the most effective Democratic message in the past cycle was something like this, from her campaign:

I worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement to crack down on crimes and keep our communities safe. I led the fight to combat sex trafficking, helped protect victims of sexual assault, and passed legislation to combat law enforcement suicide. I’ve worked tirelessly to get law enforcement the support and resources they need to keep our communities safe.

And he maintains this sort of thing is what made her narrow victory possible. Well maybe. Her victory was close enough that every little bit helped. But having lived inside the UniteHERE/Culinary Union campaign that helped win the election for Cortez Masto, I feel a need to report there was so much more going on here.

• Crucially, Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt put himself at odds with a crucial majority of Nevada voters when in June, he "called the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision 'a joke' and said it’s 'sad' that Nevada is not anti-abortion." Cortez Masto's ad makers never let anyone forget this. Our canvassers would report they would be having conversations at the doors on other issues and then, almost as an afterthought, would be told the voter's decision would be based on "women's rights." Nevadans overwhelmingly support reproductive choice.

• Republicans everywhere wanted to run in these midterms against a purported wave of increasing crime. In much of the country that was just a means of scaring white suburbanites about all those dangerous dark people that live in big Democratic cities. Cortez Masto came by her answer to this attack honestly: she was a former state attorney general who had had good relations with law enforcement, advertised her endorsement by the respected retiring Reno police chief, and had brought a particular focus on the sex crimes perpetrated against women from her former job. 

• Sex trafficking and sexual assault have particular weight in Nevada. The state advertises itself to tourists as a transgressive playground where anything goes, where "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."  The state boasts state-licensed brothels. This does not promote a safe or respectful environment for ordinary working women. Cortez Masto's particular record of concern for women's public safety is all the more attractive in the Nevada context.

• Many working people in Las Vegas really are experiencing a very scary crime wave. Our canvassers in Nevada's only big city complained their own neighborhoods had become frightening, violent places since the pandemic. One day when a large group of them was gathering in a public park before taking off to knock on doors, they had to scatter to safety when an unconnected gang fight led to a shoot out on the same turf. It seems likely that appropriate fear of crime worked quite well for Republicans in Clark County/Las Vegas. Historically, Democratic statewide wins have depended on running up huge margins there to cancel out the state's deep red Republican rural counties. Didn't happen in 2022; the Dem margin in Clark just about equaled the Republican margin in the rurals. This made Reno/Washoe County the arena where the Senate race was decided.

• Like everywhere in the country, inflation was on the minds of voters. Especially inflation as evidenced by gas prices. When we arrived in July, regular gas was running close to $6 a gallon. I watched hopefully as the price dropped under $5 during the summer -- and watched in horror as it climbed back up to nearly $6 again in the fall. Would the price of gas doom our efforts?

• UniteHERE/Culinary Union canvassers listened to the people we met at the doors -- and realized there was another issue that was as important to voters as gas and grocery inflation. This was the rising cost of housing. Canvassers would try to contact a voter and be met with an eviction notice. Tenants around Reno were experiencing 35 and 40 percent increases. So the union added a petition to the canvass, seeking signatures asking politicians to enhance "neighborhood stability." The petition was greeted eagerly in Washoe and in Las Vegas. People felt heard and were eager to talk about housing scarcity. We put the issue of rents on the state agenda. Our candidates, including Cortez Masto, promised to seek solutions. I think we can trust that this approach helped encourage otherwise disinterested voters to cast a ballot in November. 

• Finally -- national media didn't realize that Cortez Masto was extremely fortunate in her opponent. Perhaps because Adam Laxalt was another former state attorney general, much of the national media didn't take in that he was as much a crackpot Trumpist election denier as were so many other candidates endorsed by the 2020 sore loser. Laxalt had been Trump's 2020 Nevada campaign chairman; he led a series of baseless lawsuits challenging the presidential result and continued to tell audiences that the results were "rigged." And it's an open secret in Nevada that this "Laxalt" adopted the Laxalt name opportunistically to try to inherit some of the respect that attached to longtime Nevada U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt, despite having been born named Domenici (it's complicated). The Laxalt family is offended by this appropriation, complaining that he “leveraged and exploited the family name.” They endorsed Cortez Masto. Adam Laxalt doesn't look like "a normie Republican" to Nevadans.

I found it telling that Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark who led focus groups of potential swing voters in most all of this year's battleground states, came away from her Nevada group surprised: "they just hate Adam Laxalt." 

Her surprise reinforces my sense that national commentators never had much of a clue about the dynamics in this Nevada election. There was so much more going on than they saw.

When elections are very close -- Catherine Cortez Masto won by a margin of 8000 votes among nearly one million cast, almost all of that margin from Washoe County/Reno -- the local features of the contest mattered. By finding, persuading, and turning out people who most likely would not have voted otherwise, UniteHERE canvassers were vital to this Senate victory. 

I take a lesson from all this. I know an enormous amount about this Nevada campaign; I know enough to be unsatisfied by most reporting about it. Perhaps all the other campaigns I read about need as much more nuance as this one does in order to get a useful understanding of what happened. That feels worth remembering.