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Democrats are questioning whether theyre missing former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as Nevada now looms as Republicans best chance of picking off a Senate Democratic incumbent amid stumbles by GOP candidates in Arizona and Georgia.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) entered the 2022 election cycle as a strongly positioned incumbent who was viewed as holding a safer seat than several of her colleagues, including Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).

Less than two months from Election Day, however, Senate Republicans now view Cortez Masto as their most promising target, raising questions about how much Democrats strength has slipped in Nevada since Reids retirement and death.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) on Monday pointed to Ohio and North Carolina as other states where Democratic candidates are exceeding expectations, but he admitted that Nevada is a tough state for us.

And Catherine will tell you the same, he added, referring to Cortez Masto. Its been up or down 1 or 2 points for a long time.

Asked if Democrats are missing Reid, Durbin exclaimed, I miss him every day.

He also said that of course Democrats miss Reids political muscle in Nevada, acknowledging, Theres no replacement for Harry. He was Mr. Nevada, and he knew how to make it work.

Even so, Durbin insisted that Catherines the best and predicted that shell do very well.

But polls show that if Cortez Masto hangs on to win reelection, it will be by the slimmest of margins.

An AARP-commissioned poll conducted last month showed Cortez Masto leading her Republican opponent, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, by less than 4 points, within the surveys margin of error.

Another poll conducted last month by the Republican Trafalgar Group showed Laxalt leading by nearly 3 points.

The tight polling numbers are all the more concerning for Democrats because Cortez Masto has received significantly more support from outside groups than Laxalt.

Outside groups have spent$7.9 millionin support of Cortez Masto compared to$4 millionin support of Laxalt and$13.9 millionagainst Laxalt compared to$8.5 millionagainst Cortez Masto, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan research group.

Laxalts resilience in the polls also comes despite vulnerabilities as a candidate.

Like other Trump-backed candidates who won Senate primaries this year, Laxalt embraced former President Trumps false allegation that the 2020 election was stolen because of voter fraud. He has also claimed that ballots for ineligible and dead voters were fraudulently counted for President Biden in Nevada.

Jon Ralston, the CEO of The Nevada Independent and the most respected political commentator in the state, said, Harry Reids acolytes are still around and are still running the machine, so to speak.

Ralston said Cortez Masto has proved to be a formidable fundraiser.

Her campaign reported raising more than $7.5 million in the second quarter of this year after raising $4.4 million in the first quarter, giving her campaign $10 million in cash on hand to start July.

But Ralston added that if you dont have Harry Reid you cant raise as much money, and so you are handicapped to some extent.

Ralston said Reid and his political machine were huge factors behind Cortez Mastos victory in 2016, an otherwise a disappointing election cycle for Democrats. She won the seat that Reid held from 1987 to 2017.

He also argued that she ran against a much better candidate in former Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) than she is facing now.

Adam Laxalt, who Ive told virtually anyone who will listen, is an absolutely terrible candidate, Ralston said, citing his embrace of Trumps election fraud claims and ethical issues related to his term as state attorney general.

Yet National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) on Monday pointed to Nevada and Georgia as the two most promising pickup opportunities for Republicans, pointing to the low approval ratings of Biden and the Senate Democratic incumbents.

If you look at the polls, it would suggest [in] those two states we have every opportunity, he said. Bidens numbers in all of our swing states are under 40 [percent] and all the Democratic candidates are under 50 [percent]. Its rightful to tie every one of those candidates to Biden.

Ralston said its somewhat easier to tie Cortez Masto to Biden, whose approval rating in Nevada stood at 41 percent last month, because she doesnt have as strong a brand as some other politicians.

[Because] shes much more of a work horse than a show horse, its easier to define her as a just a Biden clone, he said. I think that definitely has hurt her.

Democrats familiar with Reids famed political machine say its still a force to be reckoned with and will churn out large numbers of voters for Cortez Masto. But Democratic strategists also acknowledge theres been a major void in Nevadas Democratic power structure since Reid died in December at the age of 82.

Kami Dempsey-Goudie, a Nevada-based political consultant who mainly works with Democrats but has worked with Republicans as well, said Democrats miss Reid but are still benefiting from the political operation he built over the decades.

I think they miss him a lot, but I think they also feel a lot of his presence here. A lot of his original staff and what they call the Reid machine is functioning and working aggressively, she said, noting that former Reid staffers are still involved in state political races.

She cited Rebecca Lambe, who worked closely with Reid to rebuild the state party after 2002, and Megan Jones, a longtime Reid aide who recently joined Vice President Harriss staff, as two key political players active in the state.

But she said the machine doesnt run quite as efficiently without Reid.

I think hes missed in a way where one phone call from him to certain people got a job [advanced] further down the road in a quicker time frame, so thats really missed by Democrats, said Dempsey-Goudie.

Democrats dont have as big a lead over Republicans in voter registration as they have in past election cycles, which will make Laxalt more competitive, Democrats acknowledge.

Mike Lux, a longtime Democratic strategist, hailed Reid as a political mastermind.

Nevadas always been a close state, he said, noting that Reid won reelection in 1998 by fewer than 500 votes. A number of Harrys elections were quite close so this is a swing state. Its been a swing state for about 20 years.

If Harry were still around, it would make it easier to win because he was a brilliant political strategist and he was a great leader and he brought people together. Obviously he is sorely missed so that makes it tougher, he said.

When asked about Reids missing influence on the Nevada race, Cortez Masto told The Hill that voters would make up their own minds about who to support.

Nevadans are always going to decide their races, no matter what, she said, adding that Nevada is independent, strong and that ultimately, at the end of the day, its the voters who decide who theyre going to elect.

Asked whether the Democrats get-out-the-vote operation remains as strong as it used to be now that Reid is gone, Cortez Masto replied, Absolutely. Yup. Absolutely.

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Democrats wonder if theyre missing Harry Reid in Nevada - The Hill

Vice President Kamala Harris cant wait to end the filibuster. Surely, that could have no unforeseen consequences for Democrats in the coming years.

Speaking during the Democratic National Committees summer meeting, Harris said that she couldnt wait to end the legislative filibuster. You know, our president, Joe Biden, he's been clear, she said. He's kind of done with those archaic Senate rules that are standing in the way of those two issues. And, you know, for me, as vice president, I'm also president of the Senate. ... I cannot wait to cast the deciding vote to break the filibuster on voting rights and reproductive rights. I cannot wait! Fifty-nine days.

Harris seems to think that the midterm elections will land Democrats a large-enough Senate majority that they can finally abolish the filibuster. She is ignoring the fact that Republicans have just as good of a chance to take the Senate as Democrats do to hold it. Also, Republicans remain the favorites to take the House of Representatives. Democrats may not even have an opportunity to both abolish the filibuster and pass legislation.

But even if all goes well for them, as Harris is anticipating, Democrats will come to regret this decision before long. Who can forget when, in 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gloated about abolishing the filibuster for most presidential nominations? Just one year later, Republicans flipped nine Senate seats for a 54-46 majority.

That set the stage for Republicans to confirm not one, not two, but three Supreme Court justices, shifting the balance of the court to the point that whiny Democrats have introduced court-packing as a solution. Democrats were powerless to object, especially after they had promised to abolish the filibuster against Supreme Court nominees just before a 2016 election they were so completely certain they were going to win.

Abolishing the legislative filibuster will lead to the same result.

Take abortion. Harris and Senate Democrats could legalize abortion up to birth by a 51-vote majority, sure, and then Republicans could outlaw it by the same threshold just two years later. Even an outright ban wouldnt be necessary: If Republicans limited abortion to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, California and New York would be forced to restrict abortion regardless of how loudly activists screamed in protest.

We are potentially just two years removed from Republicans having unified control of Congress and the White House with a 53-47 Senate majority. With those numbers, Republicans could put federal restrictions on abortion, reform union membership, abolish gun control measures in liberal states, defund Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, and much more. These arent simply guesses or suggestions: Most of this is what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has specifically promised.

McConnell lived up to his promise when he told Reid that Democrats would regret their decision sooner than they thought. He and Senate Republicans will do the same if they follow through on Harriss enthusiasm. Abolishing the filibuster will give Republicans the same power that Democrats themselves crave. If they haven't realized that by now, they will find out soon enough the next time Republicans take Congress.

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Democrats are aiming to score an own-goal by abolishing the filibuster - Washington Examiner

More than 30 congressional Democrats on Tuesday called on federal agencies to address what they deemed as misguided school safety policies aimed at preventing school shootings.

In a letter to the Department of Justice, Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services, House lawmakers said the government has failed to protect schoolchildren and families in the wake of at least 30 school shootings this year, including the May tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Schools are supposed to be safe havens for children, parents, educators, custodial and cafeteriastaff, and communities. But for far too many people they are not, the letter reads. We are deeply troubled by the inability to keep our children and communities safe, the bedrock on which any country rests. It is time to undo the harm and trauma tragedies like the Uvalde massacre leave behind in our schools and with our children.

The letter was signed by prominent House Democrats, including Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.),Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar(Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Andre Carson (Ind.).

House lawmakers said federal, state and local agencies have failed the American public by focusing school safety prevention efforts on hiring, retaining and funding school resource officers, an approach they called counterproductive and harmful.

Representatives pointed to the Community Oriented Policing Services in Schools Program (COPS), which has primarily supported community policing initiatives since 1995 but has also led to the hiring of 590 school resource officers (SROs) across 289 communities. For fiscal 2023, the Biden administration has requested increased funds for the COPS budget.

The Democrats argued that schools with armed SROs have higher rates of death and also more youth expulsions and arrests. They also pointed to the more than 300 officers who responded to the Uvalde school shooting, but who failed to act for more than an hour while a gunman had locked himself into two adjoining classrooms with children who were still alive.

Armed officers in schools are, at best, an inadequate response to violence that has alreadyoccurred, not a prevention strategy, lawmakers wrote.

Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine, school shootings have soared, reaching an all-time high of 251 last year, according to the K-12 school shooting database. Despite the rise, major gun control legislation was tied up until the first major federal gun control bill in decades was passed this year after the Uvalde shooting.

Over the years, school shooting prevention methods have largely revolved around bolstering school security, including security technology and emergency plans.

Gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety says among the most effective ways to prevent school shootings is to address violence at its earliest stages and block access to firearms.

Lawmakers on Tuesday proposed more programs to support students, including mental health resources, but they requested the federal agencies to conduct a review of what is most appropriate.

We urge you to break this cycle of violence and recommit to public health and safety strategies that will ensure our schools are safe for all students, they wrote in the letter. This requires thinking comprehensively about violence in our schools to ensure that we prevent violence by resolving the root causes of conflict that can escalate into violence not simply remedy its impact.

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Democrats call on federal agencies to address misguided school shooting prevention efforts - The Hill

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Month after month for the last two years, Democrats and President Joe Biden have been able to advance their radical agenda while Republicans have largely been sidelined.

Well, we just got back to Washington after spending August back at home, and families in Florida, Texas, and Utah are FURIOUS. They are sick and tired of watching Washingtons broken status quo continue while they deal with the consequences of reckless spending in Congress.

Who can blame them? As theyve felt the pain of rising inflation month after month, theyve had to watch from afar as too many Republicans have caved to the demands of the Democrats carrying out an agenda led by radical leftists in the White House and on Capitol Hill. That must end.

Its time for Republicans to stand united and demand that Congress pass a clean continuing resolution (CR) that simply maintains current federal spending levelsand not a penny moreuntil a new Congress begins.

HOUSE RETURNS TO WASHINGTON FACING PROSPECT OF A FUNDING BILL CRISIS

Now, before the liberal media starts losing its mind, lets make a few things clear. First, forcing Congress to pass a clean CR will not result in ANY cuts to funding or services. What this will do is ensure that the federal government continues to operate as it must for the American people until a new Congress begins in 2023. Second, this is not some convoluted scheme to cause a government shutdown. If Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called a vote tomorrow on a clean CR that extends government funding to January 31, 2023, it would easily pass. This is about accountability and doing whats right for American taxpayers. Thats it.

President Joe Biden walks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 14, 2021, as he arrives to discuss the latest progress on his infrastructure agenda. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Lets also use this opportunity to dismiss the ridiculous thinking here in Washington that the only way to get some things done is to shove them into a giant spending bill negotiated in secret. Its lazy and a slap in the face to American taxpayers who are robbed of true accountability and who are paying the price for Washingtons reckless spending and the raging inflation it causes.

If there are other issues that we need to confront, then members should bring them forward for a vote without delay. Anything that is truly urgent can and should be voted on as soon as possible.

Washington cannot continue to get away with holding things hostage so they can be used as political weapons to force yet more irresponsible spending in a government funding bill.

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It should also be clear that under no circumstances should any Republican in the new majorities next year vote to fund the Democrats' newly passed army of 87,000 new IRS agents. Instead of funding thousands of new IRS officials to audit and harass Americans, we should spend that money to hire new border patrol agents and finally secure our border.

Congress has one job in this context: to fund the government. Since Congress has failed to fulfill even its most basic duties, the least it can do is remain responsible and accountable to American taxpayers. When Republicans retake the majorities in Congress in January 2023, we will return power back to American families and end the insane spending.

We must ensure Washington prioritizes the needs of the American people by focusing on things like getting our economy back on track, reducing inflation, combatting violent crime, and keeping our families safe.

America is more than $30 TRILLION in debt. The worst move imaginable would be to gift the Democrats one last liberal spending spree in December as they leave power.

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It's time for Republicans to stand up and unite. We cannot green light one more liberal priority that will simply send America further in the wrong direction.

We must show strength now and prove to the American people that we will end the madness in Washington and return power back to them, where it rightly belongs.

Republican Ted Cruz represents Texas in the United States Senate.

Republican Mike Lee represents Utah in the United States Senate.

Republican Rick Scott represents Florida in the United States Senate. He is aformer Florida governor.

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Republicans must stop caving to Democrats. America needs clean bill to fund government until new Congress - Fox News

The environment is upside down, said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party. The intensity has been reversed.

It isnt just abortion. Less than 20 years after conservatives used ballot measures against same-sex marriage to boost voter turnout in 11 states, public sentiment has shifted on the issue so dramatically that Democrats are poised to force a vote on legislation to protect same-sex marriage to try to damage Republican candidates. Following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Democrats from Georgia and Wisconsin to Illinois and California are running ads supporting gun restrictions, once viewed as a liability for the left, while openly engaging Republicans on crime.

In an advertising campaign shared with POLITICO, the center-left group Third Way said the PAC it launched last year to defend moderate Democrats, Shield PAC, will start spending at least $7 million next week on digital and mail ads in seven competitive House districts to counter Republican attacks on crime, immigration and other culture war issues.

The advertising push follows polling in Rep. Abigail Spanbergers Virginia district that suggested counter-messaging by Democrats on public safety could blunt the effect of defund the police attacks by Republicans. As a result, while Spanberger is airing ads tearing into her Republican opponent on abortion, Shield PAC will be running a digital campaign bolstering Spanbergers credentials on police funding.

The story is that things that used to be very dangerous for Democrats guns and abortion are now very good for Democrats, said Third Ways Matt Bennett. Those kind of culture issues [same-sex] marriage, abortion and guns have flipped. The political impact of them [has] flipped.

Republicans, Bennett said, are not giving up on the culture wars as a [political] opportunity ahead of the midterms. But he said, I think we can neutralize those issues if you correct the record.

Thats a far cry from the GOPs one-time strength: campaigning on God, guns and gays. It was only a year ago that the cultural flashpoints in American politics appeared much more favorable to the GOP, with Republicans driving a flurry of news cycles on mask mandates, critical race theory, transgender student athletes and the perceived excesses of social media and big tech.

Even on abortion, voter intensity if not overall public opinion appeared as recently as last year to be on Republicans side. In the Virginia gubernatorial race in 2021, a majority of voters who listed abortion as the most important issue facing the state voted for the Republican, Glenn Youngkin, according to exit polls.

But just as Democrats saw the politics of guns begin to shift in 2018 when candidates favoring restrictions on firearms prevailed in some congressional swing districts the rejection of an anti-abortion ballot measure in Kansas and Democratic over-performances in special elections in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York this summer revealed the opening for them in Roe.

Democrats are like, Eureka! We have our own culture war successes, said New York-based Democratic strategist Jon Reinish, a former aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. This year, he said, could be a turning point in which the deployment of the culture war actually works for the first time in the Democrats favor and not the Republicans.

That will say a lot about 2024, he added. Democrats are so afraid of their own shadows, naturally. But I think that if it works this time, this could give permission to not be afraid.

For Republicans, the toxicity of the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade was not singularly in the unpopularity of the decision, but in its undercutting of Republican efforts to brand Democrats as extreme. At the base of every non-economic attack Republicans leveled at Democrats from crime to immigration and education was the idea that the left was out of touch. But Roe, supported by a majority of Americans including independents critical in a midterm election was a reminder that on one of the most salient issues of the midterms, Democrats were in the mainstream.

On top of that, abortion as a voting issue has been blotting out other cultural concerns, second only to inflation, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released on Thursday.

Patrick Ruffini, a Republican consultant and pollster who has worked for the Republican National Committee and former President George W. Bushs 2004 reelection campaign, said that while Republicans still have winning arguments on issues including school curriculum and pandemic-related restrictions, abortion happens to be the most salient issue right now.

Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster, noted that cultural issues still benefit Republicans, but Dobbs is a big deal, because it really energized women who werent particularly political before, including younger women.

The best case for Republicans is to have this be a referendum on the Biden administration and Democratic governance, especially inflation, immigration and crime, he said. Anything that detracts from that referendum undermines the Republican case.

For Republicans, the result has been a general election reset in which the GOP is refocusing squarely on inflation and on Biden, whose low job approval ratings remain a drag on the Democratic Party. Republicans are still widely expected to take the House in November, though likely by narrower margins than once expected. But if they do win the House it will likely be those kitchen-table issues, not the culture wars, that put them over the top.

This is visible in Colorado and Washington, where Republicans are casting incumbent Sens. Michael Bennet and Patty Murray as stooges of a Biden administration responsible for inflation and a teetering economy. In Nevada, Republicans are similarly hitting Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on the Biden-Masto economy. They are still campaigning on crime rates and on immigration in some states. But they are saying as little as possible about Roe.

In Minnesota, Scott Jensen, the Republican nominee for governor, this week released an ad in which he holds a baby, dismisses abortion as a divisive issue and appeals to voters to instead focus on the issues that matter.

With Democrats doing better than anyone right now on cultural issues, said a former Republican congressman familiar with the partys campaign operation, its going to be back to the economy and bread-and-butter for the GOP.

Its going to be about the economy and peoples views on whats in their economic best interest, said the former congressman, granted anonymity to speak candidly. Thats the way Republicans are going to win in the fall, I think.

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'The environment is upside down': Why Dems are winning the culture wars - POLITICO