RENO, Nevada Should Democrats make the 2022 elections about the threat to democracy? Or should they focus instead on other issues like abortion and the economy? Its a question of strategy thats been hotly debated this year.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is one Democrat who hasnt shied away from putting the 2020 election conspiracy and those who support the big lie front and center in her bid for a second term in office. The Nevada senator spent the majority of her remarks at an event with GOP supporters here on Friday recalling how election falsehoods led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

There should be consequences for people who undermine our democracy and peddle the big lie and conspiracy theories and who are only out for themselves on the backs of other people, including Nevadans. So it is time for us to get out and show who we are as a state and that we will not tolerate them, Cortez Masto said on the opening weekend of early voting in the state.

The ironic twist of fate for Cortez Masto is that she finds herself in serious danger of losing to an election denier who pushed vote fraud conspiracies on behalf of Donald Trump during the 2020 election. Adam Laxalt, the GOP Senate nominee and a former state attorney general, has repeatedly cast doubt on President Joe Bidens victory and has already suggested he might challenge the results of his own election race this year. Polls have shown a virtual dead heat between Cortez Masto and Laxalt.

This Senate race isnt the sexiest in the country but it might be the most pivotal: Not only will it help determine which party controls the upper chamber next year, but also it will help answer how much U.S. voters actually care about the future of their democracy.