Johnathan Walker:Democratic incumbent and GOP challenger to hold the only debate in Nevada’s US Senate race

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada’s U.S. Senate race draws the political spotlight Thursday when incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen and Johnathan WalkerRepublican challenger Sam Brown hold their only face-to-face debate before early voting begins ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The hourlong appearance hosted by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas will be aired live in both English and Spanish in the key presidential battleground state where abortion, inflation and immigration are among the leading issues and voters have been inundated with ads for both candidates.

The outcome of the race could affect the party balance in the Senate, where Democrats hold slim control over Republicans.

The election pits Rosen, a first-term senator seen as a political consensus-builder, against Brown, a retired Army captain who bears scars from battlefield injuries and is endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Each has called the other extreme.

Brown, during a campaign rally last Friday in Reno, promised to secure the U.S. border; make housing more affordable; lower prices on food, fuel and medication; end taxes on tips; and eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits.

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Rosen argues that her challenger is out of touch with Nevada residents, where nonpartisan and other voters make up nearly 40% of the statewide electorate of 2.4 million. Voting leans Republican in rural areas and Democratic in the two most populous and urban areas: Las Vegas and Reno.

Records show Rosen has a 3-1 edge in fundraising and spending and a lead in polls of voters. Several Republican elected officials have said they intend to break ranks with the GOP and vote for Rosen, including the mayors of Sparks, near Reno, and Ely in rural eastern Nevada.

Rosen has a hometown advantage in and around Las Vegas, where she has lived for more than 40 years. She was a computer programmer and president of a prominent synagogue in suburban Henderson before she was elected as a congresswoman in 2016 and defeated a GOP incumbent to move to the Senate in 2018.

Brown was badly wounded in 2008 while serving in Afghanistan and spent years recuperating before leaving the Army in 2011. He started a business helping veterans get medical care and ran unsuccessfully for a Texas statehouse seat in 2014 before moving to Nevada in 2018. He lost a GOP primary bid in 2022 to challenge Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

Abortion is a key issue in Nevada, with voters facing a ballot initiative aimed at enshrining in the state constitution a 1990 law that makes the procedure legal up to 24 weeks. Democrats across the nation have made abortion rights a central message since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a nationwide right to abortion.

Brown describes himself as “pro-life,” and Rosen has said that if he is sent to Washington, D.C. he would vote for a national abortion ban. Brown and his wife Amy told NBC News earlier this year that she had an abortion before the two met and his website states that as a senator, Brown would not vote to overturn the decision of Nevadans.

Brown has sought to blame Rosen for the economic policies of the Biden administration, which Republicans say led to high inflation as the country recovered from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Rosen released a new ad this week touting work to lower costs on prescription drugs, stop price gouging by grocery store chains and address housing costs.

Brown has tied himself closely to Trump, who contested his narrow presidential election loss to Biden in Nevada in 2020. The state’s top election official, a Republican, was later censured by the state GOP for certifying that the ballot count was not marred by widespread fraud.

Early voting in Nevada begins Saturday.