by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current
Democrats nationwide are attempting to make former President Donald Trump synonymous with Project 2025, an expansive plan to reconstruct the federal government under a Republican administration. And that narrative is trickling down to the Nevada Senate race.
Federal Election Commission data shows Republican Sam Brown, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from several leaders of think tanks connected to Project 2025, which is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation but involves a coalition of more than 100 conservative groups.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has repeatedly referred to “Trump’s Project 2025” while on the campaign trail, and Democrats have blistered the nearly 1,000-page document on stage during the party’s convention in Chicago.
Trump has publicly tried to distance himself from the proposal, posting on social media last month that knew “nothing” about the project and had “no idea” who was behind it. Trump has attempted to highlight his Agenda 47 platform, but leaked audio has suggested the architects behind Project 2025, which is described as a “Presidential Transition Project,” believe he is quietly in full support of their efforts.
In Nevada, the Republican state party mailed flyers highlighting nine of Trump’s campaign promises, describing them as “straight from Trump’s platform… not Project 2025, which Trump didn’t write and does not support.”
The flier also features a Forbes headline reading: “Trump Disavows Project 2025: Calls Some Of Conservative Group’s Ideas: ‘Absolutely Ridiculous And Abysmal.’”
The Rosen campaign has pushed hard to tie Brown to Trump and much of their messaging has focused on tying Brown to policies that align with Project 2025, even if they don’t explicitly name it. That has included highlighting comments Brown made supporting the storage of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain (a position he has since recanted) and supporting the wholesale dismantling of federal agencies including the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency (positions he since declined to confirm or stand by).
Brown’s campaign did not respond to the Current’s request to comment on Project 2025.
Campaign finance reports show Brown has received at least $50,000 in donations from Trump allies and leaders of conservative think tanks that have directly contributed to, or signed onto, Project 2025.
That includes a $3,000 donation from America First Policy Institute chair Linda McMahon, who was recently appointed to oversee Trump’s transition team, and $6,000 from Timothy Dunn, the oil tycoon and Trump mega donor who serves as vice chair of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Claremont Institute chair Thomas Klingenstein and his wife, Robin Weaver, have given more than $23,000 to Brown. Like the America First Policy Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation, Claremont has signed onto Project 2025 as a “coalition partner.”
In a July post on his personal website, Klingenstein praised Brown for fighting against “woke radicals.”
“He hates how they are attacking America, its institutions and values,” Klingenstein wrote of Brown. “And most particularly he hates how they are attacking education. He knows that white children are being taught they are oppressors. He heard a mom say that she does not want her child on the back burner. Students of all colors are being taught that America is a hateful country, conceived in racism and committed to its perpetuation. What kind of country, Sam Brown asks, teaches its children to loathe their homeland. He asks as well, what kind of country ushers in millions of immigrants with cultures different from its own and then insists on not assimilating them? Such a country has a death wish.”
A Rosen for Nevada campaign spokesperson in an emailed statement said Brown “has proven time and time again that he cares more about pleasing MAGA Republicans in Washington and passing their far-right agenda than he does about Nevada, so it’s not surprising to see that the extremists writing Project 2025 are propping up Brown’s campaign.”
The statement continued, “These far-right figures know that Brown would support their plans to gut Social Security and Medicare, take away abortion rights, tear immigrant families apart, and eliminate entire federal agencies like the Department of Education. Brown will sell out Nevadans every chance he gets for MAGA extremism, and our state deserves better from its elected officials.”
Brown’s campaign has previously pushed back on suggestions that he would gut Social Security, saying in earlier statements that “like President Trump” he “will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.” He has also said he will not support a federal abortion ban, though his history of working for anti-abortion rights candidates, attending anti-abortion rights galas and refusing to disclose his position on a proposed state constitutional amendment, has left room for uncertainty.
This year’s U.S. Senate race between Brown and Jacky Rosen is expected to help determine which political party controls Congress, and depending on the outcome of the presidential race, brings the potential for major policy shifts for the country.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected]. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and X.
