CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – Health care legislation is hanging by a thread in the Senate, and no one is under more pressure than Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada.
Heller was already seen as the most endangered GOP incumbent senator in next year’s midterm elections. He is the only one running for re-election in a state President Donald Trump lost to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Against that backdrop, it’s hard to envision a more difficult political choice for Heller than whether to support the health legislation expected to come to a vote next week in the Senate. There are already two GOP senators opposed to the legislation, so one more “no” vote would kill the bill outright in a Senate divided 52-48 between Republicans and Democrats.
Over the next several days Heller must decide whether to defy Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by becoming that third “no.”
Yet if he sides with the president and Senate leader and supports the bill, Heller would likely be parting ways with Nevada’s popular GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval, who has already expressed deep concerns about the legislation’s cuts to the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.