Republican Adam Laxalt is locked in a competitive race against incumbent Democratic Sen Catherine Cortez Masto in a contest that could determine which party controls the US Senate in January.
But if Mr Laxalt wants to win, he’ll have to do so without the support of a number of members of his own family.
The Nevada Independent reported on Thursday that 14 members of Mr Laxalt’s family are endorsing Ms Cortez Masto. A three-page letter obtained by the independent news outlet does not attack Mr Laxalt by name, but instead extensively praises Nevada’s incumbent senior senator.
“We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” the letter says.
The authors write that “no further comments will be made, as we believe this letter speaks for itself.”
Mr Laxalt, who has claimed a narrow lead in a number of recent polls of the race, also faced defections from his family when he was the Republican candidate for governor in 2018. Then, 12 of his family members publicly opposed his bid in a letter to the Reno Gazette-Journal in which they claimed that Mr Laxalt had “leveraged and exploited the family name”.
The family name carries a significant amount of weight in Nevada. Mr Laxalt’s grandfather Paul Laxalt was a senator and governor of Nevada, an institution in state Republican politics whose career in public life spanned the better part of four decades.
Paul Laxalt died shortly before the 2018 election, which Mr Laxalt lost to the current governor Steve Sisolak. Republicans are hoping to deny Mr Sisolak a second term in November, that race is also considered a tossup.
“It’s not surprising that once again a handful of family members and spouses, half of whom do not live in Nevada, and most of whom are Democrats, are supporting a Democrat,” Mr Laxalt said in a statement in response to news of Wednesday’s letter.
Mr Laxalt does appear to boast the political support of some members of his family. Following the 2018 letter, 22 members of the Laxalt family published a letter of their own in support of his campaign.
Nevada may be the Republicans’ best pickup opportunity this cycle. Mr Laxalt led every poll of the race conducted in September, though a recent October poll from Suffolk University found Ms Cortez Masto ahead by two points and pollsters have underestimated Democrats in Nevada in previous election cycles.
