LAXALT
Adam

• 1. Career
• 1.1. Military service
• 1.2. Attorney general of Nevada
• 1.3. 2018 Nevada gubernatorial campaign
• 1.4. Donald Trump 2020 election campaign
• 1.5. 2022 U.S. Senate campaign

Adam Paul Laxalt is an American attorney and politician who served as the 33rd Nevada Attorney General from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he is the party's nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in Nevada.

Laxalt is the son of former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico and grandson of former Nevada governor and U.S. senator Paul Laxalt. He graduated from Georgetown University and its law school before working as an aide to then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John R. Bolton and Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner. He worked as a lawyer in private practice and was a member of the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps from 2005 to 2010.

Elected in 2014, Laxalt served one term as the attorney general of Nevada from 2015 to 2019. In the role, he filed legal briefs in support of laws restricting abortion, challenged federal environmental protection regulations, opposed some gun regulations, and opposed a multi-state investigation into ExxonMobil's role in climate change.

He unsuccessfully ran for governor of Nevada in 2018, losing to Democrat Steve Sisolak. Laxalt was co-chairman of Donald Trump's 2020 unsuccessful re-election campaign in Nevada. After Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to concede, Trump and Laxalt made false claims of large-scale fraud in Nevada's election and sought to overturn the election results.

Career

Laxalt first worked for then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John R. Bolton, before joining the office of Virginia U.S. Senator John Warner. After leaving Washington, Laxalt worked for the law firm Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie at its Reno office until 2014, when he left the firm to concentrate on his bid for attorney general.

Military service

Laxalt spent five years in the United States Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps. He had postings at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy and in Iraq, and a stint at the U.S. Naval Academy as an assistant law professor.

Attorney general of Nevada

After practicing with Lewis Roca Rothgerber, Laxalt considered a campaign for Nevada Attorney General. In January 2014, he announced his candidacy. Laxalt was the Republican nominee in the general election. After a bitter and costly general election campaign, Laxalt defeated Democratic nominee Ross Miller. During the campaign, Laxalt stated that he opposed same-sex marriage; in 2010, he stated that he opposed LGBT individuals openly serving in the military.

Laxalt was sworn in as state attorney general of Nevada on January 5, 2015. As AG, Laxalt created the "Federalism Unit" within the AG's office and challenged federal environmental protection regulations including the Environmental Protection Agency's Waters of the United States Rule and the Bureau of Land Management's Sage Grouse Plan. As AG, Laxalt also joined lawsuits against the Obama administration over a U.S. Department of Labor regulation to protect certain employees' right to overtime pay, and over Obama's executive action creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs.

In a 2017 speech at a National Rifle Association (NRA) event in Atlanta, Georgia, Laxalt criticized a red flag bill that had been passed by the Nevada Senate. In 2018, months after the NRA called for greater adoption of these laws, Laxalt recommended that the legislature consider such a law.

As attorney general, Laxalt signed Nevada onto at least four known lawsuits supporting abortion restrictions in other states.[18] Laxalt signed onto two lawsuits supporting bans on the most commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure. Pro-choice Republican Governor Brian Sandoval's office said it was not consulted before Laxalt signed Nevada onto the Texas abortion ban brief. In the Supreme Court case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, Laxalt signed an amicus brief in support of Texas's TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) law.

Laxalt signed onto a California lawsuit to support keeping secret the identities of political donors, including one of his biggest political donors, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, backed by Charles and David Koch. Laxalt opposed a multi-state investigation into ExxonMobil's alleged role in downplaying climate change, condemning it as an attempt to stifle an "ongoing public policy debate" over human-caused global warming. Laxalt took legal action to keep fraud investigators from scrutinizing groups connected to the Koch network, which went on to spend $2.5 million to support Laxalt's gubernatorial campaign.

Laxalt created the Office of Military Legal Assistance, which provided free legal services to veterans.

2018 Nevada gubernatorial campaign

Laxalt was the Republican nominee for Governor of Nevada in the 2018 election, defeating four other candidates to win the nomination. Laxalt lost to Democratic nominee and chair of the Clark County Commission Steve Sisolak in the general election; Sisolak become the first Democrat to win the governorship in 20 years. Sisolak received 49.39% of the vote and Laxalt received 45.31%.

Asked if he would propose a referendum to put Nevada's abortion law up for a vote, Laxalt responded "We are going to look into it."

During his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, Laxalt released a health care plan that "reiterated Laxalt's long standing opposition to Obamacare, but pledged not to roll back Medicaid coverage the law helped extend to more than 200,000 of Nevada's poorest residents."

Laxalt was endorsed by President Donald Trump. Incumbent Republican Governor Brian Sandoval did not endorse a candidate in the election to succeed him, saying he would not "support a candidate that is going to undo anything that I put forward." During Sandoval's tenure as Governor, he and Laxalt had a frequently tense relationship, with disagreements over tax policy, environmental regulations and gambling regulations.

Laxalt was endorsed by Storey County Sheriff Gerald Antinoro in November 2017. Laxalt faced scrutiny for initially declining to disavow Antinoro's campaign support. A 2016 investigation found that Antinoro had sexually harassed his top deputy. Storey County Administrator Austin Osborne said in a deposition that numerous complaints including sexual harassment allegations were filed against Antinoro. In July 2018, Laxalt released an investigative report into Antinoro and announced that he would not pursue criminal charges. After the investigation concluded, Laxalt announced he would no longer campaign with Antinoro or use his endorsement.

Donald Trump 2020 election campaign

Laxalt was Nevada co-chairman of Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. Before Election Day, Laxalt unsuccessfully sought to stop Nevada from counting early-voting ballots from Clark County, Nevada (the state's most populous, Democratic-leaning county, containing Las Vegas).

After Trump lost Nevada to Joe Biden, Laxalt claimed without evidence that large-scale voter fraud had occurred in Nevada and sought to overturn the election results. Laxalt and other Trump campaign officials provided no information supporting their claim of fraud. Laxalt presented a list of 3,062 voters who he said were non-residents that voted absentee in Clark County. Nevada residents such as military personnel, students, and congressional staffers do not have to live in Nevada to be eligible voters in the state. At least 146 of the names on Laxalt's list, which the Trump campaign claimed was evidence of "criminal voter fraud," were linked to military base addresses or diplomatic postal addresses.

Laxalt also claimed that 200,000 mail-in ballot votes were verified by machine only and that these machines were unable to match signatures on ballots to those on file; in fact, ballots in Nevada that could not be assessed with machines were subject to human verification.

2022 U.S. Senate campaign

In August 2021, Laxalt announced his candidacy for the 2022 United States Senate election in Nevada, challenging the incumbent, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. He announced his candidacy with a "culture war"-focused video in which he said that "the radical left, rich elites, woke corporations, academia and the media" were "taking over America". The campaign is viewed as among the most competitive Senate races in 2022.

Laxalt won the Republican primary in June 2022.