Nevada's U.S. Senate race is among the most closely watched election in the nation. To break down the race between incumbent Republican Senator Dean Heller and his challenger, Democratic Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, KUNR's News Director Michelle Billman sat down with our Senior Political Reporter Paul Boger.
Let’s talk about the nature of this Senate race between Heller and Rosen. It’s garnering a lot of attention. Why is that?
The main reason is that Democrats see that they have a fairly decent shot at taking control of the Senate, and the best way to do it is by unseating Dean Heller.
Heller is the only Republican up for re-election this year, in a state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. He’s been widely seen as the most vulnerable GOP Senator in the country, and to be honest, his full-throated support of President Trump’s agenda has not made him a lot of friends in places like Clark County, which is heavily Democratic.
Nevada is also a true battleground state, now. In 2014, Nevada went all red. In 2016, it went all blue. This year, who knows? Polling in this state in notoriously bad – but what polling we have is very close. You do not get that in many places around the country. That adds to the excitement-level in watching a race like this.
We’ve heard a lot about health care this year. Can we actually stop and break that down a little bit? What is actually at stake in the healthcare debate in this election?
I think if you talk to Democrats, I think they’d tell you that everything is at stake in this healthcare debate, and boy have they made that their main campaign issue this year. Democrats have used everything at their disposal to criticize Dean Heller for his “flip-flopping” on a series of votes last summer looking to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
To be fair, I think it’s important to re-hash a little bit of history. During that set of debates last summer, Heller voted against straight-up repeal efforts. As a matter of fact, you’ve probably seen ads with him standing next to Governor Brian Sandoval, talking about his opposition to repeal efforts. Well, at that time, his biggest point of contention with the repeal was that it would have effectively ended Medicaid expansion here in Nevada.
But when the Medicaid expansion aspect to the program was removed from the repeal efforts, Heller became much more amenable to a piece of legislation you may remember called “skinny repeal.” It ultimately failed, but Heller supported it. He also supported the tax-cut bill passed by Congress later that year, which ended the individual mandate.
Now that’s a lot to follow, and it’s not easy to unpack all of that into a single thirty-second TV ad. But, Rosen has been attacking Heller on the issue for months. To combat that, Heller is now doing his best to alert voters of his efforts to save one of the most popular portions of the health care law, making sure insurance companies continue to cover pre-existing conditions.
What are some of the other major issues facing the state?
While healthcare has taken the spotlight, there are your typical issue debates that seem to always come up.
Immigration has come up time and again this year. Heller has voiced support for immigration reform but hasn’t gotten into too many specifics. Rosen has been highly critical of the administration’s policies.
On the budget, Heller voted for the massive tax cuts last year but has also criticized lawmakers in Washington for spending too much. Rosen has characterized the cuts a giveaway to the rich.
And, of course, guns. On his website, Heller says he has consistently opposed efforts by the extreme left in Congress to limit law-abiding Americans’ right to bear arms including comprehensive gun control. Rosen has called for increased gun control.
This has also been a particularly negative race between the Republicans and Democrats. Why has it taken this particular tone?
Yeah, if you’ve opened your mailbox, watched TV for more than five minutes or watched an online video in the last month or two, you have very likely been inundated with campaign materials. And it’s particularly bad for registered non-partisan voters here in the state.
Part of the reason for that is all the money that’s been pouring into the state. Last quarter, July to September Jacky Rosen was able to raise more than $7 million. Heller brought in another $2 million. For Rosen, the average donation was smaller, but most of it came from out-of-state. On the flip side, Heller’s donations have been much larger, but mostly from inside the state. But that’s just the campaigns themselves. Analysis from the Nevada Independent shows outside groups, mostly political action committees on both sides of the aisle, have spent an additional $38 million in this state – $23 million on behalf of Rosen and $15 million for Heller. That is just an astronomical amount of money, and most of it’s going to ad buys.
And really, that’s one of the main reasons this particular campaign has seemed so particularly vicious. And when you combine that with the high stakes nature many people across the country are putting on this particular race, it’s no wonder this campaign has taken this particular tone.
