Now we're talking! So much for the unbeatable golden boy Adam Laxalt meme.
Is that actually a thing? I feel like most people on here see Cortez Masto as a slight favorite.
Well, no, it’s not, and yes, you are completely right about most people here seeing Cortez Masto as a favorite (and no one believing Laxalt is unbeatable or even a particularly strong candidate), but I don’t think the "NV is Titanium Lean D forever" crowd is able to operate without straw men and gross hyperbole.
It should be noted that these numbers are very similar to Kelly's (both in terms of D margin and incumbent's %-age of support), so I don’t think expecting NV and AZ to again vote very similarly in 2022 is all that outlandish. Assuming that polls will forever overestimate Republicans in NV and therefore "unskewing" them by adding a couple of percentage points to the D number is also a fool's errand — polls notably did not underestimate Democrats in 2020, and everyone knows that they sure as hell didn’t in 2014.
Obviously Cortez Masto can win, but if she does, it won’t be because Democrats have an impenetrable floor of 50%/51% here but because Republicans drastically underperformed expectations both in the Southwest and nationally. There is no way 2022 will be anything more favorable than a D-leaning year for the GOP if Cortez Masto is holding Nevada by more than Joe Biden did (and I’m not expecting this to happen).
I think an underrated possibility is one in which Kelly wins and Cortez Masto loses, even if their respective victory and defeat are narrow. I could see this happening if the new Democratic coalition, which relies on higher propensity college-educated voters, makes Democrats slightly stronger in Arizona than in Nevada. This is especially true if Democrats lose more working-class union voters, which from what I understand are a big part of why the Harry Reid Machine has kept Democrats afloat there even in tough circumstances.
