- Ex-Nev. AG Adam Laxalt dismissed Trump’s chances of flipping Nevada in the 2024 presidential race.
- Laxalt, a former Trump campaign chair in the state, is now backing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ WH candidacy.
- Trump lost Nevada in both 2016 and 2020, but Republicans think the state is winnable in 2024.
Even before former President Donald Trump jumped into the 2024 GOP presidential primary, his team had long eyed different roadmaps for a potential general election rematch against President Joe Biden.
In 2020, Biden flipped the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, pulling away support from many independents who had backed Trump in the 2016 election.
Trump also lost Nevada — one of the fastest-growing states in the country —by narrow margins in both 2016 and 2020, which has given many Republicans hope that it is winnable for the former president.
But former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a onetime Trump backer who lost a close contest to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto last fall and now serves as the chair of the Never Back Down super PAC aligned with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told NBC News that he didn’t see a way for the ex-president to win the state in the general election next year.
“Trump hasn’t won Nevada the last two go-arounds,” Laxalt told the news outlet. “I was a two-time Trump chair. I don’t see a path for him to win Nevada in a general election. Those voters are not coming back.”
In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won Nevada by 2.42% over Trump and Biden carried the state by 2.39% in the 2020 race, continuing a Democratic presidential winning streak that began in 2008 with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s victory.
But the more recent presidential losses have been close enough to encourage Republicans to contest the state again in 2024.
Chris LaCivita, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, criticized Laxalt for dismissing Trump’s political viability in the Silver State.
“So Adam Laxalt, who lost the governor’s race in ’18 and lost the Senate race in ’22, is lecturing President Trump?” LaCivita told NBC News. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
Trump easily won the 2016 Republican presidential caucus in Nevada, when he was fresh on the political scene. And the Nevada Republican Party awarded all of its delegates to Trump in 2020.
But next year’s Republican nominating contest is slated to be a primary instead of a caucus, which could give a boost to Trump’s GOP challengers. The Nevada Republican Party has sued the state to restore the caucus system next year.
And DeSantis, who in the weeks since announcing his campaign has ramped up his appearances in front of likely Republican primary voters, is working to eat into Trump’s existing electoral advantage among conservatives.
This weekend, DeSantis will attend Laxalt’s annual Basque Fry, which draws in Republicans from across Nevada and can give nascent campaigns critical visibility in a state where both parties are looking to gain a long-term foothold.
Last year’s midterm election results were emblematic of Nevada’s competitive political nature.
In the same election cycle where Cortez Masto eked out a win in the Senate race, Republican Joe Lombardo unseated then-Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak.
