by Jeniffer Solis, Nevada Current

During a campaign event in Las Vegas Wednesday, Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown hitched his wagon to right-wing provocateur and media personality Ben Shapiro in a bid to win over Nevada voters.

The move comes as national polling averages show Brown lagging 10 percentage points behind Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen. 

Brown acknowledged his uphill battle for the Senate seat to a room of supporters at the South Point Hotel and Casino on Wednesday.

“Even though we’ve been massively outspent, the race is still margin of error close on our internal polling,” Brown told the audience.

“The team has been shooting me straight. We’re a smidge behind, but we’re in a position to be able to close that gap,” he continued. 

Brown and Shapiro criticized the national media for disregarding his race against Rosen, despite Nevada’s status as a battleground state for control of the Senate. Brown argued the race will come down to independent and low-information voters, who he believes have not heard his message. 

“It has been absurd the way that the media has covered this race, and the way that social media has covered me,” Brown said.

“We’ve been just under a barrage of attacks, attacks against me, attacks against other Republicans on the ticket,” Brown said. 

Rosen’s campaign has heavily invested in attacks tying Brown to policies that align with Project 2025, a controversial plan to dramatically expand presidential powers and reconstruct the federal government under a Republican administration. That includes Brown’s previous comments supporting nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, a position he has since recanted, and his inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights

Brown has previously declined to publicly state how he will vote on Nevada’s Question 6, which would enshrine the state’s abortion rights protections in the constitution. On Wednesday, The Nevada Independent published an audio clip of Brown at a campaign meet-and-greet on Aug. 28 suggesting that he will vote “no” on the ballot measure, saying its passage “would change the law and essentially [create] no limit on access to abortion.”

Former President Donald Trump has maintained a much tighter race against his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris, according to national polling. Brown has attempted to seize on Trump’s popularity by aligning himself with the former president.

Brown highlighted Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy during his stop at the South Point. Trump first unveiled the policy during a campaign rally in Las Vegas in June. The policy proposal quickly gained steam, leading Rosen and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to back a “no tax on tips” bill introduced by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

“It took them about three weeks to hear from their constituents, and then they flipped,” Brown said. 

With Democrats holding a razor thin majority in the U.S. Senate Nevada is considered a key battleground state in the race for a Republican controlled U.S. Senate. Brown and Shapiro warned of a dangerous Democratic agenda if they expanded their hold on the Senate, such as killing the filibuster, making Puerto Rico and Washington, DC states, and adding term limits to the Supreme Court.

“Can you imagine a scenario where, if President Trump wins, but the Democrats find a way to keep the Senate majority? Will he get anything done?” Brown said.

“This really could be the last consequential election of the rest of our lives,” he continued.

Brown said if elected his first act as a senator would be to confirm Trump loyalists into cabinet positions.

Lindsay Graham, Tom Cotton, and ‘Women for Sam Brown’

Brown’s hour with Shapiro was one of several campaign events scheduled for this week, which also included stops at a bagel cafe with Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and a Filipino restaurant with Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to “address China’s increasing aggression towards the Philippines.”

Brown has leaned into his past as a military officer in the U.S. Army to project authority on foreign policy issues compared to Rosen. During his stop at the South Point in Las Vegas, Brown highlighted his time in Afghanistan, while criticizing Rosen and the Biden administration on border security, and the Israel-Hamas war.

“This administration has had failed foreign policy from day one,” Brown said. “Our enemies are afoot. They see a weaker United States of America, and we need President Trump back in the White House, and we need a strong Republican Senate to ensure that we regain our footing as the strongest nation in the world.”

On Tuesday, Brown was scheduled to speak at Fervent Church to the American Christian Caucus, a Nevada affiliate of the National Association of American Christian Communities, which believes churches need to be involved in politics and voice their opinion on “the laws being passed when the Bible is perverted.” Among the examples of things the organization believes “pervert” the Bible: “divorce was made easier” and “abortion was made legal.”

At almost the same time Tuesday, Brown’s wife, Amy Brown, with Sarah Johnson, wife of congressional candidate Drew Johnson, launched a “Women for Sam Brown” and “Women for Drew Johnson” coalitions at a Summerlin restaurant.

The irony was not lost on Nevada Democrats, who released a statement calling it “a desperate coalition aimed at appealing to women while running on an anti-abortion, anti-women agenda that is deeply out of step with our state.”

April Corbin Girnus contributed to this story.