Last week there was a report at NBC News that Republicans were starting to believe the Senate seat in Nevada held by Catherine Cortez Masto was their best chance for a pick-up this cycle.

“This is definitely our best opportunity at any point in the last 14 years,” said Jeremy Hughes, a Republican consultant who has worked on many Nevada races.

Hughes cited GOP gains in voter registration, a trend of Hispanic voters drifting away from Democrats and rising prices of gas and food as the key forces propelling Republicans.

Since then, Republican candidate Adam Laxalt has been on a roll.

Over the last week, the last 4 polls show us LEADING @CortezMasto:

Emerson: 42/41

Big Data Poll: 46/44

Trafalgar: 47/43

Data for Progress: 47/46

Our momentum to become the 51st Senate seat isn’t slowing down any time soon.

Join our movement at https://t.co/S2kAdmxgZk

— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) September 22, 2022

The Data for Progress poll just came out today. Results are here but the Hill has the main takeaway.

Republican nominee Adam Laxalt narrowly leads Democratic Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in the race for the state’s Senate seat, according to a poll from the progressive think thank Data for Progress released on Thursday.

Laxalt holds a 1-point lead over Cortez Masto, with 47 percent of likely voters saying they would support the GOP nominee and 46 percent saying they would back the incumbent senator, according to the poll. The results are within the poll’s margin of error.

FiveThirtyEight gives Data for Progress a B rating but, as mentioned in the tweet above, an Emerson/The Hill poll from last week also showed Laxalt with a 1-point lead. FiveThirtyEight gives Emerson an A- rating.

Overall, FiveThirtyEight shows Masto with a narrow lead, 44.2 to 43.5, i.e. less than a point difference. Real Clear Politics’ average of polls has Laxalt up slightly more than a point, 45.3 to 44. Of course all of these polls and poll averages are well within the margin of error, but this race is definitely looking like a dead heat. Part of that appears to be a shift from polls of registered voters to polls of likely voters.

Looking at Laxalt’s YouTube site, he’s uploaded two new 30-second ads in the last day. The first one is a pretty clever defensive ad on the issue of abortion.

The second ad is an attack ad tying Cortez Masto to Biden on the border crisis.

Republicans really need to win this seat to have a shot at taking the Senate. Stay tuned.