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ISaturday, February 10, 2009 Jacky Rosen, Nevada's Democratic Senate candidate, takes the stage at a rally outside of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, just off the Vegas Strip. "I know it's early," Rosen, dressed in a pale blue suit, tells the crowd. "But I always start a rally off like this."
The 61-year-old member of Congress proceeds, to the beat of a 23-year-old song by the rapper Coolio, to say: Democratic party is not a party like a Democratic party do not stop.
It's not quite as cringe-inducing as the time Hillary Clinton urged voters in 2016 to "Pokémon Go to the polls," but the Democratic party rap would have been slightly less cool if Mitt Romney had recited it.
Nevada, despite the fact that Nevada Democrats brought in to form vice president Joe Biden, Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto, gubernatorial candidate Steve Sisolak, Rosen, and a mariachi band.
When Donald Trump speaks to Dean Heller in rural Elko County, he has seven-hour drive north of Vegas, he mocks Biden. "Biden, they just said the count: 193 people showed up," Trump says. "And we love Elko, but in all fairness, it is easier to draw a crowd in Las Vegas." As Trumpian embellishments go, it was not far off: The union said there were more than 500 rallygoers in Vegas, which was itself an exaggeration . In any event, in 2016, about 800,000 people voted in Clark County (home to Vegas); 18,000 voted in Elko County.
They are going to take over the Senate in 2018. Heller is the only Senate Secretary of the Hillary Clinton in 2016, and if Democrats can not It is going to be a very difficult task for the Senate. House of Representatives, many analysts expected Rosen would have done this race away by now. But on October 25, Heller led Rosen by 1.7 points in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Why Rosen is not entirely clear. She is not a bad candidate. She's relentlessly focused on delivering her message about keeping Obamacare's rules for preexisting medical conditions. "It's time to repeal and replace Dean Heller" is one of her favorite canned lines. But she is not very well known or experienced. "Nobody knew who she was until a few years ago," says Jon Ralston, the veteran Nevada political reporter and editor of the Nevada Independent. Rosen, a native Chicago, moved to Las Vegas after graduating from the University of Minnesota; she started as a waitress and later did some consulting work for Nevada businesses. Ralston says Rosen was "Harry Reid's 17th choice in 2016, and I may be being generous there."
The good news for Rosen is that unenthusiastic votes will count the votes, and the Nevada Democratic machine has a good record of dragging voters to the polls. In 2010, Reid trailed Republican Sharron Angle by 2.7 points in the final Real Clear Politics polling average; he won by 5.6 points. Democrats did a few things better than their polling in 2012, when Heller eked out a 1.2-point victory while Obama bested Romney by 6.7 points. And in 2016, Donald Trump had a 0.8-point lead in Nevada polling; Hillary Clinton beat him by 2.4 points.
It is not uncommon for polls to be a few points, but many believe the facts of the past. "Today, we've got about 250 hospitality workers who have taken a leave of their union jobs," Bethany Khan, spokesperson for the 57,000-worker strong Local Union Workers 226, tells me after the October 20 rally. "They're in the field every day, maybe 9 to 12 hours a day, and six days a week."
The name of a typical midterm, Khan says: "It's the same as a presidential year, which is unprecedented." But Ralston says Republicans have been working to catch up. The Republican National Committee, he notes, "The RNC has 36 full-time paid staff and a network of 2,000 unpaid volunteers in Nevada.
The unions may still be strong enough to pull a generic Democrat like Rosen across the finish line in Nevada. But it's easy to see why Beto O'Rourke's campaign is in Texas.
While Rosen wants to take a half-step to single-pay health care (a Medicaid "buy-in"), O'Rourke is all-in-it's a single-pay "Medicare for all" plan. While Rosen awkwardly recites rap lines, O'Rourke rocks out of his guitar to squeals of delight from his fans. (O'Rourke, who skateboarded at a campaign event last month, is a dorky guy's idea of a cool guy-much
O'Rourke scratches just about every progressive itch. On October 18, he said he believes President Trump should be impeached. The next day, I asked Rosen if she thought too Trump had committed impeachable acts.
"You know, I guess we can see where the Mueller investigation takes us, and we'll let that follow out to its completion. And if it shows something there, then I guess we'll take it from there, "Rosen replied. "But right now we have to do-look, we have I think it's 18 days now till the election. I have my blinders on, I'm working hard for Nevada. I have a job in Congress and I'm working hard to win this election to represent the people of Nevada. Going forward, we're going to look towards 2020, and hopefully we're going to get a good candidate, get out the vote, and that's how we'll take back the presidency. "That's a long way of saying: Don 't bet on it.
Back in June, liberal megadonor Tom Steyer said that politicians like Rosen were afraid they would "enrage Republicans and drive them to the ballot box in November" by talking about impeachment, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Nothing has happened since Michael Cohen's pleading guilty to a criminal law, Rosen's wait-and-see stance on impeachment. A Suffolk poll from September shows why: Nevada versus Trump 60 percent to 36 percent. When Biden was asked about the possibility of a Democratic House Impeaching Trump, he told CBS: "I hope they do not. I do not think there's a basis for doing that right now. "
While Rosen is closely following the mainstream Democratic playbook, Heller is tightly hugging Trump. At the rally in the mining town of Elko, Heller set a standard 24-karat for sycophancy, saying, "Mr. President, you know a little bit about gold. In fact, I think everything you touch turns to gold. "The night before the rally, the moderator at the only Nevada Senate debate this year Heller saying in October 2016 that he was" 100 percent against Clinton, 99 percent against Trump. " Heller responded: "I do not agree with everything he says, but I agree with most of what he does."
In Nevada, the economy remains a source of strength for the Republicans and a challenge for Democrats. At the debate, Heller argues that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Rosen hit Heller for adding $ 1.8 trillion to the deficit with the tax cut, but when asked after the debate if she'd vote to repeal it, she said: "No, I think we need to go back and reform it bit by bit. "
When Barack Obama appeared at a rally with Rosen on October 22, he said "When you hear all about economic miracles, remember who started it." When Biden spoke at Rosen's rally, he identified number of pocketbook issues-worker pays, education, the growing use of non-compete clauses in contracts-without specifying solutions. "Nobody-nobody-should-have-work-to-make-living in the United States of America," he said.
Biden also focused on Trump's character and lack of decency. George Will and David Brooks on how to reach disaffected Republicans, he cited columnists "This is not your father's Republican party," Biden said.
Despite its boring candidates, the Nevada Senate is worth watching, and not only to see who will control the Senate. It could also send Democrats an important message about whether in 2020 they should be the party of Joe Biden or the party of Bernie Sanders. If Rosen's mainstream message fails in Nevada, while staunch progressives win elsewhere, Democrats may conclude they're better off with a presidential candidate who paints in bold colors, not pale pastels.
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