Nevada Republican Senate primary candidates take aim at absent front-runner in debate

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Seven Republicans vying for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Nevada circled the familiar talking points of GOP politics at a debate on Thursday, while also taking shots at the front runner who made an apparently strategic decision not to attend.

The debate in a Reno casino ballroom focused on increased border security, anti-abortion stances and cutting government spending and size, but candidates also criticized retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, whose backing in Washington, D.C., and formidable 2022 campaign have made him a fundraising juggernaut above the crowded primary field.

Nearly every candidate called out Brown for his absence and described him as an establishment candidate not willing to face voters, a combative signal by a group of lesser-known Republicans attempting to gain ground in an otherwise cordial debate.

“Don’t vote for Sam Brown. Look at one of these candidates up here,” said Bill Conrad, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former deputy mayor of Modesto, California, who co-founded Redmove, the conservative group hosting the debate.

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