One of the tightest Senate races in the country has drawn even tighter in the final weeks of the midterm election season, with Republican Adam Laxalt now polling even with Democratic Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada — a race that is one of the GOP’s best shots at flipping a Democratic-held seat.
Laxalt has inched ahead of Cortez Masto by 2 percentage points, within the poll’s margin of error, a gain from a month ago when he was down 3 percentage points, according to a poll conducted this week by the conservative Club for Growth and shared exclusively with POLITICO.
The bump for Laxalt represents a swing toward Republicans as concerns about the economy loom large in contrast with a Democratic summer boost in momentum over abortion rights. Independent voters appear to be breaking with the GOP as the Nov. 8 election nears.
Laxalt’s slight lead in public polls comes as Democrats have called in top surrogates to appear in Nevada in the next two weeks, including former President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump held a rally to support Laxalt.
Club for Growth’s super PAC, which is spending nearly $13 million in Nevada’s Senate race, found Laxalt moving from 39 percent support in mid-September to 42 percent earlier this month, and now to 45 percent. Support for Cortez Masto appears to have remained steady at 43 percent, according to the polling memo. The survey, conducted Oct. 16-18 by WPA Intelligence, has a margin of error of 4.4 percent.
A CBS poll released Thursday also found Laxalt up by 1 percentage point. While Republicans enjoyed a narrow lead last fall moving into the spring, Cortez Masto emerged as the frontrunner through the summer as Democrats attacked the GOP on abortion.
Support for Catherine Cortez Masto appears to have remained steady at 43 percent, according to the polling memo.