OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen narrowly survived to keep her Senate seat in the competitive state of Nevada.
Rosen trailed Republican Sam Brown multiple times since the initial results were announced on election night, and the race was called after several days of vote counting. With 675,318 votes, she won by a majority of 20,571.
In a state that Republicans were considering as a possible pick on their way to expanding their Senate majority when the chamber turned on election night, Brown, a veteran and businessman, was running against the one-term incumbent.
Despite just being a freshman in the House, Rosen was elected to the Senate for the first time in the Silver State in 2018 during the midterm elections that produced a blue wave halfway through Donald Trump’s first year in office. He defeated former Senator Dean Heller.
Rosen faced off against Trump-backed Brown, a West Point graduate and veteran of the War in Afghanistan.
In 2008, Brown, a Purple Heart recipient, suffered an improvised explosive device injury (IED) that resulted in burns to more than 30% of his body. He attacked Rosen for the state’s sluggish economic recovery while running as a conservative small businessman.
70,000 Trump voters in Nevada didn’t bother to fill out the ballot in the Senate race — which is why Capt. Sam Brown lost. https://t.co/8P4vBr2Ya8
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 11, 2024
🚨Special message to @JDVance and all the other Devil Dogs:
Happy Birthday USMC!
And, don’t eat the crayons. 🖍️ pic.twitter.com/wpHIUojDAp
— Sam Brown (@CaptainSamBrown) November 10, 2024
This comes as GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake is narrowly projected to lose her race against Democratic Rep. Reuben Gallego.
Gallego, who has represented a Phoenix-based House seat for nearly a decade, will succeed outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Sinema decided not to seek reelection after switching her political affiliation from Democrat to Independent last year, as she faced significant challenges securing another term, The Hill reported.
Gallego announced his challenge to Sinema before she made it clear that she would not seek another term, putting Senate Democrats in a temporarily awkward position of potentially having to choose which Democrat to support.
The Arizona Democrat emphasized his background as the son of a single mother with family roots in Mexico and Colombia, along with his service in the Marines, The Hill reported.
His victory provides a small but significant boost for Democrats, who had a largely disappointing election cycle this year. While they successfully defended their Senate seats in battleground states like Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, they also lost seats in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia, and appear poised to lose in Pennsylvania as well. Additionally, they lost control of the White House, and their chances of maintaining control of the House are looking increasingly bleak.
Lake, a former local news anchor, previously ran for Arizona governor in 2022, narrowly losing to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). She gained national attention during her gubernatorial campaign as a prominent election denier—a stance that haunted her once again during her Senate run, even as she continued to contest her 2022 loss in court.
“Lake, this cycle, maintained she would not vote for a federal ban on abortion if elected to the Senate and said abortion restrictions should be left up to the states,” the outlet noted, adding that previously, she supported a now-repealed 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions in Arizona.
At the same time, Gallego faced scrutiny during his Senate run over his record and whether his views on issues like immigration and the border had evolved. Critics pointed to past comments he made, such as calling Donald Trump’s border wall “stupid” and “dumb.”
Gallego, a former member of the House Progressive Caucus, let his membership lapse later, citing dues as the reason. Republicans aimed to nationalize the race, using ads to link Gallego to prominent Democrats like Vice President Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Meanwhile, Trump won Arizona this time around after winning the state in 2016 but losing there to Joe Biden in 2020.
