“Dean Heller connects with people, he just does, he always has,” said a longtime strategist for the Nevada senator. | John Locher, Pool/AP Photo Elections Heller proves resilient against ‘blue wave’ in Nevada Top Democrats have been heading to Nevada to keep the Senate seat in play.

LAS VEGAS — Dean Heller might survive a blue wave.

The Nevadan is the only Republican senator running in a state Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, and defeating him is central to any Democratic hopes for winning control of the Senate or preventing Republicans from expanding their 51-49 majority. But Heller has narrowly led Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen in recent independent polling, and Republicans are increasingly bullish about his chances to pull out a win — even as Democrats nationally challenge for control of the House.


National Democrats are flocking to Nevada to prevent a massive disappointment in a state that has gone blue in three successive presidential elections — but proven tougher for the party in midterm years. Former President Barack Obama is headlining a rally for Rosen and the entire Democratic ticket Monday afternoon, just after ex-Vice President Joe Biden rallied at the local Culinary Union headquarters on Saturday, the first day of early voting. Sen. Bernie Sanders will campaign for the congresswoman later this week.

Republicans countered with a visit this weekend from President Donald Trump, who blistered Rosen and Democrats in the remote northern city of Elko, a rural area where high Republican turnout could be a major boost for Heller.

“I think that blue wave is being rapidly shattered,” Trump declared.

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Rosen, a relative political newcomer who is serving her first term in the House, will need to buck the trend of Democratic voters tuning out non-presidential elections in order to beat Heller. Democrats say that’s exactly what’s happening.

“Right now we're seeing presidential levels of excitement in and around our state,” said William McCurdy, the state Democratic chairman.

Democrats point to Rosen’s fundraising as a sign of that enthusiasm: She’s outraised Heller every quarter of the election cycle, pulling in $7 million in the third quarter compared to $2.2 million for Heller. Rosen raised another $5 million in the first half of October.

Heller has framed that as a negative: He repeatedly attacked Rosen during a debate Friday for raising money in California, accusing her of shirking her congressional duties in Nevada. The NRSC ran an ad calling for a no vote on Rosen to “kick California out of this Senate race.”

Heller has also called Rosen a do-nothing House member with few accomplishments to show for her single congressional term, he has linked her to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Rosen pushes back on that characterization, pointing to her membership in the bipartisan “problem solvers” caucus, and saying she helped pass more than 50 pieces of legislation.

Heller’s campaign declined requests for an interview for this story, and unlike Rosen, the senator did not speak to reporters following Friday’s debate here.

Mike Slanker, a longtime strategist for Heller, said the Republican is “often underestimated” but that he’s a proven winner. Heller won three campaigns for secretary of state before leaving for the House, and he ultimately won his first Senate race in 2012 even as Obama carried Nevada by more than 6 percentage points.

“Dean Heller connects with people, he just does, he always has,” Slanker said. “There's a reason he's won every election he's always run for. People like him.”

Rosen said she always expected a close race. Sitting on a bench outside a housing complex in East Las Vegas after addressing two-dozen elderly voters, she said she feels a sense of momentum behind her campaign.

“It's always won by a small margin. That's what Nevada is,” Rosen said. “We have a real independent streak. People want to see someone to vote for and that's what I'm giving them and I feel the enthusiasm.”

Democrats and Republicans both consider the race a dead heat, and the success of their respective voter turnout operations will likely determine the winner. Democrats have long touted the “Reid Machine” — the party apparatus built up by former Sen. Harry Reid that helped deliver victories even in some difficult election years.

Democrats' ground game is scattered among different groups. As of one week prior to the start of early voting, the Nevada Democratic Party knocked on 275,000 doors and reached 800,000 voters by phone call and text. The Culinary Union, which has more than 57,000 members, allows for a leave of absence to canvass, and its field team has knocked on nearly 200,000 doors and had conversations with 40,000 voters so far. The union also provides rides to voting locations.

Michelle White, the Nevada state director of For Our Future PAC, said her organization will have knocked on 500,000 doors by Election Day. Overall, she said Democrats’ ground game and enthusiasm is more comparable to 2016, a presidential year when the party ran the table here rather than the 2014 midterms where the party lost across the board.

“The operation in that midterm versus the operation on the ground in this midterm is a complete 180,” White said. “The field program and outreach going on from this side of the wall have been incredible and feels more at the level of a presidential year versus a midterm."

Republicans acknowledge the success of the ground game built by Reid, but say they’ve developed a turnout operation that surpasses it. The Republican National Committee has invested heavily in Nevada, training more than 2,000 fellows in the state to work with party staffers and volunteers. Dan Coats, the RNC’s state director in Nevada, said the operation is successful because it’s permanent, with neighborhood volunteer teams engaged continually since 2016. In August, the RNC announced it had made 1 million voter contacts in Nevada this election cycle, surpassing its total for the entire 2016 cycle. As of Monday, it had made more than 2 million voter contacts, an effort that Coats said is “historic and unprecedented.”

“I believe you saw the best the Democrats had to offer and it was great,” said Michael McDonald, the chairman of the state GOP. “I believe we surpassed that this year.”

For Democrats, turning out the Latino vote in particular will be critical. Some in the party fret about whether opposition to Trump is actually going to fuel a surge in Latino voters across the country, but Nevada Democrats insist their ground game operation will be successful.

“There's a high level of enthusiasm among Latinos,” Cristobal Alex, president of Latino Victory, said in an interview in the Culinary Union’s parking lot before Biden’s rally. “The problem is only about half of them have been contacted by a party or a candidate. That's not the problem here in Nevada."

Democrats have tried to make the race a referendum on Heller, on Trump, and on the relationship between the two Republicans. During the lone debate, Heller said his relationship with the president gave him a direct line of communication that could help him deliver on local issues important to Nevadans, something he said Rosen would struggle to do without a line of communication with the administration. Rosen dismissed the argument, calling Heller a “rubber stamp” for the president even when it might hurt Nevadans.

“As long as Senator Heller does what the president wants, he's in the president's good graces,” Rosen said. “And the minute he doesn't, we all know what the president does.”

Laura Martin, the associate director of Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a grassroots organization focused on registration and turnout efforts, said voters believe Heller has changed during his first term, even as Rosen remains a less-known quantity.

“They know that Heller is gone,” Martin said. “We hear people saying what happened to him, or why is he like Trump? Even though they don't know her, they know that about him."

