“A top GOP Senate candidate walks ‘rigged election’ tightrope in Nevada”

From NBC:

No top Nevada Republican has raised more doubts about the state’s elections system than U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general who still says the 2020 presidential race was “rigged” after having fruitlessly tried to overturn the results.

But across the state in rural county campaign events, Laxalt spreads a more nuanced message: GOP voters should be confident that the elections are “legitimate” and that they need to turn out because “your votes are going to matter,” according to audio recordings obtained by NBC News.

Laxalt’s tightrope walk — casting suspicion on the integrity of an election won by President Joe Biden in 2020 while seeking to allay concerns prompted by those claims to a select audience — provides an early window into the challenges for Republicans campaigning in the era of what former President Donald Trump’s critics have come to call the “Big Lie.”…

In separate Republican meetings in five of the state’s 15 smaller, rural counties,Laxalt zeroed in on the elections conducted in the state’s two most populous counties, Clark and Washoe. Clark County, which contains Las Vegas, is heavily Democratic, while Washoe County, which contains Reno and is considered more of a swing county, also continued its blue trend in backing Biden.Laxalt reassured Republicans that the elections in the 15 rural, heavily GOP counties could be trusted, while the vote in the remaining two couldn’t.

“I understand the rurals feel like: ‘You know what? Las Vegas keeps taking these elections, and as long as that’s happening, what vote do we have? What say do we have?’” Laxalt said in his speech Oct. 2 at the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca, according to the audio clip.

“Well look, each election is through each particular county’s voter registrar. Your votes are going to count,” Laxalt continued. “Your votes are going to matter. And so you have to vote. We’re going to have to deal with Las Vegas, and we’re going to work on a plan for that.”

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