![Nevada Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen (R); Nevada challenger GOP candidate Jim Merchant](https://www.jewishpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Nevada-Democratic-Senator-Jacky-Rosen-R-Nevada-challenger-GOP-candidate-Jim-Merchant-696x461.jpg)
![Nevada Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen (R); Nevada challenger GOP candidate Jim Merchant](https://www.jewishpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Nevada-Democratic-Senator-Jacky-Rosen-R-Nevada-challenger-GOP-candidate-Jim-Merchant-696x461.jpg)
Jim Marchant, a Nevada Republican who lost his US House election to Democrat Steven Horsford back in 2020, the same time President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid against Joe Biden, is planning to seek Nevada’s US Senate seat against Jewish incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen.
Rosen’s mother was of Irish, German, and Austrian descent, and her father’s family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Austria. Rosen and her husband, Larry, a radiologist, live in Henderson. They have one daughter. Before entering politics, Rosen was president of Reform Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson.
The Democrats must keep their tiny majority in the Senate, and Nevada will most likely be one of the closest races. In 2022, Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada barely won a narrow victory over election-denier Republican Adam Laxalt.
Merchant, too, is an election denier, which lost him a race to become Nevada’s Secretary of State. The GOP, eager to avoid a repeat of the 2022 midterm elections that raised Democrats’ number in the Senate and barely gave House Republicans a small majority – when they were expecting a “red wave.” There was no red wave.
Marchant has been linked by the media to QAnon, a fringe group associated with antisemitism and neo-Nazi propaganda. But it isn’t clear if Merchant is part of the movement or is just curious about it. But he is on the record as saying “the cabal, the deep state cabal, basically invented the Dominion machines to cheat and they tested it in Venezuela first.”
It’s the stuff that cost Fox News close to one billion dollars in a settlement with Dominion.
Rosen is a lot more mainstream, and the GOP is desperately searching for a Republican who could unseat her.