Army veteran Sam Brown, the leading Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, is six points behind Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to a poll.
The Noble Predictive Insights poll published Tuesday finds that Rosen would garner 41 percent of the vote when matched up with Brown, who would take 35 percent. Just under one in four respondents were undecided.
Rosen holds a 10 percent lead over Brown among independents, 34 percent to 24 percent, with another 42 percent of the demographic undecided.
Brown performs three points better against Rosen than Jim Marchant, his opponent in the Republican primary, who still comes within single digits of the Democrat incumbent. Rosen’s support climbs to 43 percent in this scenario, while Marchant draws 34 percent. Another 23 percent of poll participants were undecided.
Independents break for Rosen over Marchant at 38 percent to 25 percent, while another 37 percent are up for grabs.
The margin of error for the full sample of 829 registered voters is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The same survey found former President Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden 45 percent to 40 percent. That portion of the poll was published on March 14.
Noble Predictive Insights also gauged the temperature of the Republican primary between Brown and Marchant, finding Brown, who is backed by Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV), has a double-digit lead.
Of the 296 registered Republicans sampled in the poll, 39 percent support Brown in the primary, while 26 percent back Marchant. The remaining 35 percent are undecided about who they will back in June’s primary.
Moreover, a plurality of 40 percent of GOP respondents think Brown has a better shot at beating Rosen in November, while 28 percent say the same of Marchant.
“Brown’s task ahead is clear: grow his plurality into a majority by primary day to make it to the general election, consolidate GOP support, and secure enough Independents and persuadable Democrats to cross the 50% threshold,” said Noble Predictive Insights Chief of Research David Byler in a release, adding:
This may be tougher than it sounds. Nevada is still a slightly blue state. Democrats have mostly won recent Senate and presidential races there. Even in this poll – where Trump leads Biden – Democrats lead Republicans on the generic House ballot by 3 points. The question is whether Brown can break through and win when so many other Republicans fell short.
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt nearly unseated Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) in the 2022 midterms, taking 48 percent of the vote to her 48.8 percent.
While Laxalt came up just short, Lombardo beat former Gov. Steve Sisolak (D-NV) by 1.5 percentage points in the 2022 midterms in the gubernatorial race, demonstrating Republicans can win statewide races in the Silver State.