A new poll shows Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto leading her two potential Republican opponents, but President Biden is a drag on her campaign.
According to a Nevada Independent/OH Predictive Insights poll, Ms. Cortez Masto leads former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt by eight percentage points. The Nevada Democrat has 43% of voters’ support, while Mr. Laxalt picked up 35%.
Military veteran and businessman Sam Brown also trails the first-term Nevada senator by eight points with 34% to her 42%. Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Laxalt are competing in a eight-candidate GOP primary
Additionally, President Biden’s nationwide plummeting poll numbers are hitting him in Nevada, where he received a 52% job disapproval rating from voters, while 43% approved — a rating that is slightly below former President Donald Trump. In the poll, 51% of those surveyed said they viewed Mr. Trump unfavorably, compared with 46% who viewed the former president favorably.
President Biden captured Nevada by more than 2 percentage points in 2020, adding to Democrats’ streak of winning the state in the last four presidential election cycles. But Republicans have been closing in on Democrats in the last two presidential elections.
The poll puts Ms. Cortez Masto in a better position than a survey recently released by the Reno Gazette-Journal and conducted by Suffolk University, which showed Ms. Cortez Masto trailing Mr. Laxalt by 4 points and Mr. Brown edging her out by less than one point. Mike Noble, chief of research and managing partner of OH Predictive, told The Independent there is a difference between both polls’ respondents.
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The OH poll, he noted, surveyed registered voters, which tend to skew to the left, while the Suffolk poll surveyed likely voters, which tend to lean politically toward the right. However, both polls showed Ms. Cortez Masto well below 50% support.
Ms. Masto’s race is considered a key contest this cycle that will decide which party controls the Senate, which is currently split 50-50.
The OH Predictive Insights online opt-in panel poll was conducted between April 1 and April 9, included 748 registered Nevada voters and had a 4.4% margin of error.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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