Nevada’s Cortez Masto Gets Post-Roe Bump in Tossup US Senate Race

A tossup U.S. Senate seat in Nevada, one of five in which Republicans are focused on ousting Democratic incumbents they see as vulnerable, is among the November midterm races that could be influenced by voter response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June repeal of Roe v. Wade.

First-term Democrat U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) is seeing a post-Roe bump in her hotly contested race with Republican former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt in one of the nation’s most-watched Senate races.

Cortez Masto leads Laxalt by 7 percentage points, 45 percent to 38 percent, according to a statewide Aug. 14-17 Suffolk University/Reno Gazette-Journal survey of 500 likely Nevada voters. That’s a 10-point swing to Cortez Masto’s favor from an April poll that showed Laxalt, endorsed by former President Donald Trump and supported by his former U.S. Navy colleague, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, leading by 3 percentage points.

The Supreme Court ruling, which kicked abortion regulation back to the states, appears to be spurring turnout among Democrats, as evidenced in Kansas, where voters on Aug. 2 rejected a proposed amendment from conservatives to remove support for abortion access from the state’s constitution, and in an Aug. 23 special congressional election in New York, where pro-abortion voters turned out in force to defeat a favored Republican candidate.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) waves to supporters after her victory at an election watch party in Las Vegas on Nov. 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Chase Stevens)

The incumbent Democrat appears to be garnering “sizable” gains in support “among women and white voters” in the wake of June’s Roe repeal, Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos said in a statement accompanying the poll.

Among the women who participated in the poll, Cortez Masto led by 23 points, 53 percent to 30 percent, up from 6 percentage

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