Adam Laxalt isn’t overpromising.
The Nevada Republican, his party’s leading candidate for Senate in the Silver State, offered a modest menu of agenda items he plans to pursue should the GOP win a majority of seats in the chamber in the midterm elections. Topping the list? Using control of the floor, and key Senate committees, to conduct aggressive oversight of President Joe Biden and his administration. Laxalt also would encourage the Republican majority he hopes to usher in to look deeper into the Russia investigation that consumed Washington during most of former President Donald Trump’s term.
“If we have a majority, we have to be willing to use the investigatory powers of the Senate,” Laxalt said this month in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “First and foremost, my job is to win this race and help gain the majority back for Republicans and be the 51st Senate seat. I’m not sure there’s anything more to do than stop this radical, leftist march of the Biden administration.”
Republicans have come under fire from Democrats for pitching the House and Senate majorities they are campaigning to win in November primarily as backstops against Biden — until 2024, at least, at which point they hope to recapture the White House as well. Even some Republicans concede they find that approach uninspiring and small-minded. But there is something pragmatic and politically useful about this strategy. To begin with, Biden’s job approval ratings are miserable — running to put the brakes on his agenda is effective messaging.
However, it appears Laxalt and other Republicans might have learned from past mistakes. In midterm campaigns with a Democrat in the White House, in 2010 and 2014, Republicans made all sorts of promises about what they would do if they won the majority, such as repealing and replacing Obamacare. Republicans did so even though they were never going to win the power to fulfill that and many other guarantees in those two midterm contests. How did Republican voters react? They were furious.
In that context, Laxalt’s emphasis on stopping Biden might be politically sensible, although the former Nevada attorney general said he has more ambitious goals for his Senate tenure in the long term.
“I would hope to be part of a new generation of senators [who are] on offense,” Laxalt said. “I want to be part of fighting to save my state and my country.”
Laxalt, 43, is waging his first bid for Senate four years after losing his campaign for governor in a Democratic wave election. A Trump supporter and often critical of the GOP establishment, Laxalt is the consensus pick of his party to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto — a strong candidate difficult to dislodge, even if 2022 unfolds as a Republican wave.
If Laxalt wins, he would be following in his late grandfather’s footsteps. Republican Paul Laxalt, a former Nevada governor, represented his state in the Senate for two terms in the 1970s and 1980s and included among his friends President Ronald Reagan and the former Senate majority leader from Nevada, Democrat Harry Reid, who died in late December.
“I loved my grandfather to death,” Laxalt said. “He was the only father figure I had growing up in my life.” Laxalt said he never considered going into the family business. From his inside vantage point, it looked unappealing. “It’s not something I grew up thinking I was going to do. When you see the downside of politics — it’s why a lot of people say, ‘No, thanks,’” Laxalt said. Watching former President Barack Obama “running over the Constitution,” as Laxalt put it, changed his mind. In 2014, he ran for Nevada attorney general and won.
After losing his bid for the governor’s mansion four years later, Laxalt figured he was done with politics. The way he tells it, Biden changed his mind, just like the president’s old boss did nearly 10 years prior. So, he decided to run for Senate. Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky quickly coalesced behind Laxalt, although he is facing competition in the primary from military combat veteran Sam Brown.
“Every single day, I hear how concerned people are about the direction of our country. For people in D.C., that might sound overblown,” Laxalt said. “But the average person I run into on ground is deeply concerned about the direction of the country. I’m 43 and have the opportunity to serve my state, serve our voters, and it’s important for me to try to step and be part of that project.”
