Is this the best they’ve got?

A lot of people expected Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to get beat in 2010, and almost as many expected Republicans to win control of the U.S. Senate.

Republicans did gain six Senate seats that year. But Reid’s wasn’t one of them, and Democrats held control of the Senate with effectively a 53-47 majority (independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman caucused with the Democrats.)

In case you’ve forgotten, 2010 was the Tea Party year. And Republicans had some Senate candidates to show for it: Todd “legitimate rape” Akin in Missouri, Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell in Delaware, and of course Sharron “Second Amendment remedies” Angle in Nevada.

In 2022, yet again, a lot of people expected Republicans to win control of the Senate. And yet again thanks to “candidate quality,” as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dryly dubbed it, the likes of Hershel Walker in Georgia, Mahmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, and Adam Laxalt in Nevada sank the GOP’s hopes, and Democrats retained control.

A lot of people, yet again, expect next year Republicans will win the Senate, which Democrats currently control by a teensy 51 to 49 margin. Of the 33 Senate seats on the ballot in 2024, Democrats are defending a whopping 23 of them, including three states that Trump won in 2020, along with a half-dozen battleground states where Biden’s victories were close, including Nevada.

And next year, yet again, Republicans appear to be flirting with candidates whose most notable feature is their likelihood to blow it.

Take Nevada’s Jim Marchant (please). Marchant is a thoughtless peddler of conspiracies, paranoia, hysteria, and idiocy. He’s a less capable version of Marjorie Taylor Greene. As the Republican nominee for secretary of state last year, he claimed every election in Nevada has been rigged since 2008 (which would include an election he won once), as part of a global “cabal” (Marchant’s favorite word) controlled by an app on George Soros’s phone or whatever. 

Marchant also made clear that as secretary of state, if he disagreed with the decision of Nevada voters in a presidential election, he would reject the voters’ decision and send an alternate, i.e. fake, slate of electors to Congress. 

Nearly every time Marchant opens his mouth, it is to express contempt for every and any Nevadan who doesn’t watch Newsmax.

So naturally he is the most high-profile Republican seeking the nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen next year.

He’ll have some competition in the primary though. 

Sam Brown, who challenged Laxalt in last year’s Senate primary, still considers himself senatorial material, and will evidently be announcing his candidacy Monday. The smart Republican money, i.e., McConnell’s, would prefer Brown, who came in second to a general election loser in a primary, to a guy who lost his general election race by only two percentage points. 

Because that guy who lost by two points is Marchant. And the fastest growing group of voters in Nevada (and the nation), independents, might be less than enthusiastic about voting for a QAnon-adjacent crackpot.

Obscure entrants Stephanie Phillips, a real estate agent, and Ronda Kennedy, a lawyer, have also filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission indicating a Senate run.

April Becker lost a campaign for state senate in 2020 and a campaign for the U.S. House last year, and is mentioned as a possible Republican contender in the Senate primary. Repeatedly losing in races for ascending offices would put her on the Danny Tarkanian track to political success, so maybe Becker too will someday be a county commissioner in some rural dot.

And of course every campaign cycle there is a crop of rich guys who think they’re smarter than everyone else so they deserve to get elected to something important. Reportedly mulling a Senate candidacy in Nevada is one Jeffrey Ross Gunter, who owns a chain of dermatology clinics. Gunter was also easily the worst person with Nevada connections ever to be ambassador to Iceland (yes there have been more than one). And Daily Beast reported that Gunter appears to be registered to vote in two states – one of them being California – and with two parties – one of them being Democrat.

Needless to say everyone should hope Gunter gets into the race. We could all use some laughs.

All those candidates or potential candidates notwithstanding, today’s Republican Party being what it is (cuckoo for Trump) and what it isn’t (a political party led by principled conservatives advocating reasoned policy positions), at this point Marchant should probably be assumed the frontrunner, however slightly, over Brown for the nomination.

Marchant shouldn’t be considered a serious, much less leading, candidate for any public office, let alone the Senate. And the only things about Brown that say “U.S. Senate” are his leftover 2022 yard signs and his obvious ambition to be a career politician – if not in one state, then in another.

Which raises the question: Seriously, Nevada Republicans, WTF?

Is there not a single Republican in Nevada of plausible senatorial caliber? Is that it? 

There might be some, on paper. But none of those people have indicated a willingness to serve, as evidenced by Laxalt drawing only one challenger in his primary last year – Brown – who was even newer to the state than Laxalt and who has never won an election despite attempts in two states.

So let’s ask again: Is there not a single Republican in Nevada who an informed voter could consider a legitimately credible candidate for a seat in the United States Senate?

If no such person gets in, and the field is left to Marchant and Brown, and maybe Becker, we must conclude the answer is no.

And yet again, Democrats might get a break. 

Unless this time the crackpot wins.