Rosen reelected to second term in U.S. Senate

Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen at an election night watch party at the Aria. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)

Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen held off an unexpectedly strong challenge from Republican Sam Brown to win a second term by a narrow margin.

The Associated Press decision desk called the race for Rosen Friday night.

Brown, a West Point graduate and Army captain who was badly burned by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan, had been shown trailing Rosen by as much as 10 points in some polling leading up to the election, though in the the last days of the campaign he expressed confidence the the gap was narrowing.

Rosen, who raised $46.5 million through the third quarter, pummeled Brown in television ads over his inconsistent record on reproductive freedom. Before moving to Nevada in 2018, Brown managed the Texas congressional campaign of a candidate who opposed abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. As a legislative candidate in that state, Brown said he’d support a ban on abortion with no exceptions after 20 weeks.  

Brown raised $20 million through the third quarter. He also received a last-minute boost of $6 million in late October from the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, NBC reported.

Rosen, billing herself as the most bipartisan member of Congress, led Brown in polling throughout the race. The former president of a synagogue in Henderson, Rosen served one term in the House of Representatives before her election to the Senate in 2018. 

The race is Brown’s second for the U.S. Senate. In 2022, he lost the Republican primary to former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who was defeated by the incumbent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. 

Brown, who was endorsed by former Pres. Donald Trump, declined to register support for Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and voiced support for a more simple path to citizenship.  His campaign focused on the economy, cutting the federal budget, and easing prices for Nevadans.

The Nevada race was one of a handful of competitive contests nationwide expected to determine which party would control the Senate. But the Senate map strongly favored Republicans throughout the cycle, with Democratic incumbents defending seats in several Trump states, including a seat in West Virginia which was being relinquished by Democrat Joe Manchin and won Tuesday by Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The Democratic loss of that seat was a foregone conclusion.

Then on election night, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown was defeated by Republican Bernie Moreno, and Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester lost to Republican challenger Tim Sheehy. When Nebraska incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer was declared the winner over independent candidate Dan Osborne, that sealed Republican control of the Senate.