Nevada’s senior United States Senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, has taken the role as honorary chair of ‘ModSquad’, a political action committee (PAC) that has supported moderate Democrats in the Senate since 2007 and aims at electing more centrist candidates in 2026.
Currently 11 Senate Democrats—including Cortez Masto and Nevada’s junior Senator, Jacky Rosen— are members.
As a result of retirements, attrition and the party’s realignment to the left, Cortez Masto is now one of the Senate’s most moderate Democrats. Alongside Virginia’s Sen. Mark Warner, she represents the center in Democratic Senate leadership.
Cortez Masto argues that embracing centrism is the key to winning back power for Democrats. She points to Senate Democrats 2024 victories in four swing states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona) that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost.
“Common-sense Democrats are the only group that really outperformed in the 2024 election,” she asserts. “That’s our path forward.”
Cortez Masto says Democrats should focus on economic issues impacting working families and small businesses. Her messaging relentlessly focuses on “common-sense” ideas and “kitchen-table” issues – high prices, grocery, energy and housing costs, health care.
She urges Democrats to listen to their constituents on immigration:
“We talk about securing that southern border, but we can also talk about doing that and also doing comprehensive immigration reform at the same time.”
As Nevada’s former Attorney General married to a former Secret Service agent, Cortez Masto was a critic of the “defund the police” movement that took off in 2020.
“We also need to be talking about recognizing that our communities want safe communities,” she says. “That means we don’t run around talking about defunding the police.”
Cortez Masto was the first Democrat to oppose President Biden’s appointment of Adeel Mangi, a criminal justice activist to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Mangi’s confirmation failed.
While Cortez Masto voted 92.9% of the time in line with Joe Biden’s stated position she opposed the Biden administration’s relaxation of pandemic-era border controls and scuttled a mining tax that would have hurt Nevada.
This year, she joined with Republicans to advance a government funding bill and supported the Laken Riley Act’s harsher punishment for some noncitizens accused of crimes.
But Cortez Masto is not in the Sen. Joe Manchin-style accommodation mold. She was handpicked by the late highly partisan Harry Reid to succeed him in 2016. The first Latina senator in history, she used Reid’s political organization to win two close elections.
In 2016, she narrowly defeated GOP Rep. Joe Heck (47.1%– 44.67%). In 2022, Cortez Masto trailed in many polls and was identified as the most vulnerable incumbent Democrat. She eked out re-election by 7,900 votes over former GOP Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
On July 29, a rare display of bitter Democrat-on-Democrat infighting flared on the Senate floor. A heated Sen. Cory Booker, the progressive New Jersey Democrat with presidential ambitions, railed against Cortez Masto and Sen. Amy Klobuchar over a package of bipartisan policing bills.
The debate that unfolded instead was about how to be an effective Democrat during the second Trump presidency.
Booker slammed Cortez Masto for being “complicit” with an authoritarian president in finding common ground. Cortez Masto countered she didn’t need a lecture on how to push back and fight Trump.
Socialist firebrands Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, through their popular “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, urge attendees to support “brawlers who fight.” They have endorsed far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in mayoral races, Zohran Mamdani (New York City) and Omar Fateh (Minneapolis).
To win, Democrats will have to confront the party’s attraction to socialism and factions that would rather see Democrats lose than compromise: the climate lobby, advocates of open borders and transgenderism and the anti-Israel left.
“If we are going to win those swing states, it’s about the moderates,” Cortez Masto argues.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views.
