LAS VEGAS (AP) — One of the closest battles Senate races this year involves a neck-and-neck Nevada contest between incumbent Republican Dean Heller and Democrat Jacky Rosen, who will meet in their first and only debate Friday night in Las Vegas.
Heller is considered the most vulnerable Republican senator running for re-election this year because he's the only one running in a state that Democrat Hillary Clinton won.
Nevada is a battleground that Democrats swept in 2016 but during the last midterm elections in 2014, Democrats stayed home and Republicans won key races across the state.
Lackluster turnout could keep the seat and control of the Senate in GOP hands, but democrats hoping a backlash to President Donald Trump will propel their base to the polls and carry Rosen to victory.
She's a former computer programmer and synagogue president who narrowly won her House seat in 2016 after being recruited to run by former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid.
Heller, a former stockbroker who hails from northern Nevada, has been in the Senate since 2011 and has never lost an election in his three decades holding national and state public offices.
He once criticized Trump and returned his campaign donation and the president last year threatened Heller's re-election chances when the senator held up GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Heller has since become an ally of the president, who has made two fundraising stops for him in Nevada this year and is scheduled to return on Saturday.
Rosen painted Heller as a rubber stamp for the president who flipped-flopped on protecting the Affordable Care Act.
Heller contends Rosen sought a promotion with only a light record in the House.