Laxalt gives health care questioner the brush-off

If you want to talk with gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt, don’t ask if he’s going to follow in Gov. Brian Sandoval’s footsteps.

“I stood in a long line waiting to meet him,” says Will Pregman, a community organizer for local progressive non-profit Battle Born Progress, who attended an event Thursday night intended to recruit volunteers for the Laxalt campaign.  “We shook hands and took a picture.  Then I asked my question.  He kind of scowled and shoved me ahead.”

The question:  “Are you going to be standing up to attacks by Congress on our healthcare, like Governor Sandoval did?”

Laxalt, who seems in a video to be annoyed at the question, ignores Pregman and appears to push him away.

“It was a fair question. Governor Sandoval was strongly in support of Medicaid expansion. Laxalt supports work requirements for Medicaid.  We don’t think that’s really in the spirit of what’s in the best interest of working families,” said Pregman.

Pregman says Laxalt told the standing-room-only crowd of more than 30 people that he is ahead in the most recent “Marist poll” by two points, but is working as if he’s three points behind.

The NBC News/Marist poll released this week had a margin or error of 5.5 points, so even if the poll had found that Laxalt was three points behind Democratic candidate Steve Sisolak, the result would still be a statistical dead heat.