Republican Sam Brown swings away in Nevada Senate debate amid polling deficit

LAS VEGAS — GOP candidate Sam Brown spent Thursday’s Nevada Senate debate taking shots at Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen as he still faces a polling deficit with Election Day creeping nearer. 

On three separate occasions, Brown called Rosen an “elitist” and an “insider” as he tried to cast himself as the outside force taking the people’s voice to Washington, D.C. In contrast, Rosen spent the evening focusing largely on her track record and roots in Nevada, hoping to stay above the fray and ride her polling lead.

Brown was so eager to attack Rosen that he even used a question about potential alien life to get in a jab in a theme that persisted throughout the debate.

The tension blew over early in the debate when the two candidates tackled the issue of housing, with rising prices making homeownership less attainable for Nevadans. Rosen proposed holding corporate investors accountable for buying up real estate and pricing people out.

“If you’re in a housing shortage and these corporate investors come and buy up all the homes and they jack up the prices to unreasonable rates, that’s hurting your community,” said Rosen, touting her proposed legislation called The Home Act. “We’re going to fine them.”

Brown said: “It’s interesting that Senator Rosen would mention a desire to want to fine greedy corporations. What if we fine greedy politicians who make things more unaffordable for us?” 

Another focus of the debate was immigration, as candidates were asked about former President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy proposal, border security and immigration reform. Almost 29% of Nevada’s population is Hispanic or Latino, according to 2020 census data. 

“Mass deportations, who would get caught in that?” Rosen asked. “How many innocent people would get rounded up?

“We have to be thoughtful about what we do, not use it as a political football,” she continued.

Brown replied, “This is again what you would expect out of an elitist from D.C. whose own neighborhood has more security than our border, with gate and security guards.

“Our border deserves that, too. Our communities deserve that,” he said. 

And when moderators asked Rosen and Brown whether Congress should conduct an independent investigation into UFOs, Rosen answered the question. 

“I do think it’s important that we do our independent investigation in the Senate,” said Rosen, who represents the state home to Area 51.

Brown said: “I’m just as curious as anyone. I’d love to know what’s going on.” The he pivoted hard.

“But when you’re talking about secrets, here’s the sort of secrets I think Nevadans deserve to know about, and that is why Sen. Rosen has violated the STOCK Act multiple times,” Brown charged. 

While Rosen spent the evening touting her bona fides as a senator and reminding the audience she has been a Nevadan all of her life, she did take a swipe at Brown when the issue of reproductive rights came up. 

Abortion is already legal until the 24th week of pregnancy in Nevada. Fearing that such rights could be undone in the future, reproductive rights advocates gathered enough signatures this summer to put a measure on the ballot to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. That has made reproductive rights a cornerstone of the Nevada political landscape.

Asked for his position, Brown said, “I come at this as someone who is informed by my wife’s experience.” His wife, Amy Brown, shared her abortion story with NBC News in February.

“I also stand by Nevada’s law that allows for abortion up to 24 weeks,” he said. “Nevadans made our law clear 34 years ago. I stand by that law, and I would not vote for a national abortion ban.”

But Rosen brought up Brown’s past positions on abortion. Brown, who ran for the Texas Legislature in 2014 but lost, supported a 20-week abortion ban when he was a candidate in that race. “He has a decadelong record of saying that he’s against any exceptions on abortion,” Rosen said of Brown’s changing stance. 

“If you don’t believe that he would support a nationwide abortion ban, then I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you on the Las Vegas Strip,” she quipped.