Early voting has been underway since May 28 for the June 14 primary in Nevada, where most of the action is unfolding in rock ‘em, sock ’em Republican nomination battles for governor, US Senate, and in three of the state’s four congressional districts.
Awaiting those five GOP scrum survivors are incumbent Democrats. Only one is being tested in a primary; the others are marshaling resources for rocky roads to re-election in November when they will face opponents backed by an enthusiastic Republican voter base amid a changing electorate.
For the first time in state history, most of Nevada’s electorate identifies as independent, non-affiliated rather than a Republican or a Democrat. The long-documented trend with such voters in Nevada and across the country is that a majority tends to vote Republican.
Even more inspiring for GOP hopefuls is the fact that among Nevada voters who are registered with a party, Republicans have made significant gains in narrowing Democrat’s registration lead since 2020, trimming a 7 to 8 percent gap between the parties to less than 3 percent in May, according to the state’s Secretary of State’s Office.
Plus, Republican candidates in three of the state’s four congressional districts may also benefit from an inadvertent assist from Nevada’s Democratic-controlled Legislature in its post-Census redistricting.
To bolster Democratic numbers in two congressional districts, lawmakers sapped some from a deep blue inner-Las Vegas district, then diluted it by clumping it with rapidly reddening suburbs to the south and east.
As a result of these factors and ambient anger over inflation and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration, Cook Political Reports rates what had been “likely” Democratic wins now as “toss-ups” in all three districts come November.
The Nevada races have drawn national attention. The National Republican Congressional Committee has added all three districts to its target list of flippable seats in charting the GOP’s path to taking control of the House in fall’s mid-terms. The House Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund PAC is expected to spend millions in the state.
Democrats at the national level also see the vulnerability. Despite a relatively quiet primary season within the party, keeping those seats blue will be a priority for the House Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC, which is also expected to spend millions this summer and fall on campaign advertising.
Therefore, Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) in Congressional District 1 (CD 1)—the formerly deep blue inner Las Vegas district—Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) in CD 2, and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) in CD 3, will have well-funded campaign coffers when they defend their seats in November.
With CD 1’s new boundaries stretching east and south of Las Vegas and its reconfigured demographics doubling the district’s number of registered Republicans to nearly 110,000, what had been a 2-to-1 Democratic voter bulge has been scaled back to single-percentage points.
And that advantage appears more tenuous as the primary nears with the Cook Political Report, which didn’t classify CD 1 as competitive two years ago, ranking it “competitive but leaning Democrat” before revising it to “toss-up” in May.
Emboldened by the addition of suburban and rural areas to the previously compact-blue Las Vegas district, eight GOP candidates are vying for the party’s CD 1 nod, which has only elected one Republican in the 40 years since Nevada gained a second congressional seat.
Latinos for Trump Nevada Chair Carolina Serrano, retired US Army Col. Mark Robertson, and conservative activist David Brog have emerged as the frontrunners, but with such a large field, naming a favorite would defy the prognostic skills of Vegas oddsmakers.
The crowded primary includes businessman Morgan Shotly, former family court judge and Assembly Member Cynthia Steel, civil rights podcaster Jessie Turner, activist Jane Adams, and former CD 4 US Rep. Cresent Hardy, who, along with Robertson and Serrano, switched districts to run in the new, less blue CD 1.
Hardy, who represented Nevada’s CD 4 from 2015-17 before being defeated by Horsforth, only entered the CD 1 primary on March 18 and reported raising just $9,000 in his campaign’s May 25 Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filing.
It is uncertain how much impact the former US House rep will have on the primary battle where, a week before the June 14 vote, Serrano, Robertson, and Brog had drawn the most attention and support in terms of financial backing.
Rep. Titus (D-Nev.) has won four re-elections by garnering the overwhelming support of Las Vegas area Hispanic voters and organizations. Serrano says she will be Titus’ and the Democrats’ “worse nightmare” in Spanish and English campaign ads now flooding southern Nevada airwaves.
Serrano, 37, of Las Vegas, the American-born daughter of Columbian immigrants, maintains she is the only Republican in the primary who could defeat Titus head-to-head in the heavily Hispanic district in a general election.
As 2020 Latinos for Trump chair, she is a strong proponent of the former president’s America First movement and a staunch conservative who has been endorsed by the Nevada Republican Committee, former attorney general and U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt and Rep. Elise Stefanik (D-N.Y.)
As of her campaign’s May 25 FEC filing, Serrano is also pacing the field in fundraising and spending. Her campaign had raised $568,123, spent $359,644, and had $208,479 in cash available with three weeks to go.
Mark Robertson is an Army and Army Reserve veteran, certified financial planner, and adjunct professor in finance. He touts an America First agenda that calls for building Trump’s border wall, outlawing abortion, and promoting renewable energy.
Robertson says what distinguishes him from his primary opponents is his military background, which includes serving in 10 overseas outposts with the Pentagon’s Office of the Defense Secretary.
Robertson, 62, of Henderson, has been endorsed by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. As of May 25, his campaign reported raising $542,621, spending $359,644, and having $130,452 in cash on hand.
Brog is president of Edmund Burke Foundation-sponsored National Conservatism group and executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, which combats antisemitism on college campuses. He is also an America First candidate who sees border security, crime, and Democrats’ “radical agenda” as the top threats to Nevada and the nation.
Brog, former executive director of Christians United for Israel, has garnered financial support from Genie Energy PAC, the Hindu American PAC, as well as a May endorsement from former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a “fighter who knows how to defeat these dangerous ideas.”
According to FEC reports, Brog, 55, of Summerlin, had raised $381,728, spent $207,374, and had $174,354 in his campaign coffers as of May 25.
The Republican primary winner will face Titus, 72, in November, although the five-term incumbent, while heavily favored to advance, must first fend off a scrappy challenge by Socialist Democrat Amy Vilela, 47, in one of the few contested Democratic primaries.
According to their campaigns’ May 25 FEC filings, Titus had nearly $1.278 million on hand, while Vilela, who chaired Bernie Sanders’ progressive 2020 presidential campaign in Nevada, had $53,373. With three weeks remaining before the June 14 primary, Vilela’s campaign had spent nearly $100,000 more than Titus’s had.
This sprawling northern Nevada district remains reliably and firmly Republican, with incumbent Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Ariz.) seeking a sixth term in a district which has not elected a Democrat in its 40 years of existence.
Amodei is expected in November to easily defeat the winner of the seven Democrats seeking the nod in the party’s primary. Still, first, he’ll need to brush aside three Republican primary rivals, the most notable being Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian.
The son of iconic University of Nevada, Las Vegas, basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian and a perennial candidate, Tarkanian has lost three U.S. Senate races, three U.S. House races, and elections for state Senate and Nevada secretary of state in the last decade.
Tarkanian did not join the race until March but has since made waves attacking Amodei as too much of a moderate, claiming he is the true conservative and America First candidate best suited to serve the Republican-dominated district.
But if money matters, then Tarkanian’s chances for an upset are slim. As of May 25, his campaign reported raising $592,000 — including $366,700 in self-funded loans — spending $547,906, with $44,084 remaining in its coffers.
Amodei’s campaign reported it had raised $689,000—including $245,170 from national PACs—spent $754,791 and had $324,316 in las on hand as of May 25.
Two-term Rep. Susie Lee (D-Mev.) does not have a primary challenge but does have nearly $2.4 million in her campaign coffers, ready to take on the winner of her district’s primary.
As with CD 1, analyses of CD 3 have been steadily shifting red since 2020, with what had been a “likely” or “leaning” Democratic district now rated as a toss-up by the Cook Political Report and by Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball, among others.
CD 3 was often referred to as Nevada’s “most swingy” district, with Republicans winning six of the last ten elections but none since 2014.
The shifting demographics have inspired five Republicans to seek the party’s nomination to challenge Lee in November, with three making the race interesting in the final days before the June 14 vote.
A Las Vegas real estate attorney, April Becker lost a 2020 state Senate election by 1 percentage point but likes her chances in the congressional race in which she has emerged as the front-runner.
In television ads across southern Nevada, Becker has been less ideological in her campaign messaging than most GOP hopefuls, drumming up Lee’s perceived failures in containing inflation, boosting the economy, and improving border security while citing education as her top priority.
In its May 25 FEC filing, Becker’s campaign reported it had raised $1.182 million and spent nearly $1 million, holding $249,366 cash in its coffers with three weeks to go.
A New Jersey native and a graduate of The Citadel, John Kovacs owns NVNJ Construction Group. Like Becker, he also lists inflation, border security, and crime as top issues but has also focused on addressing water scarcity as a priority others avoid.
Kovacs’ campaign on May 25 reported to the FEC that it had raised $356,909, spent $357,988, and had just $2,088 in the bank.
An attorney, engineer, and US Army Iraq War veteran, Noah Malgeri maintains he is the true America First candidate in the race, and some prognosticators say his aggressive campaigning could seriously challenge Becker’s projected Election Night win. As of May 25, Malgeri’s campaign reported to the FEC that it had raised $293,751, spent $268,288, and had just $2,363.26 in its bank account.
When Nevada’s Democratic-led Legislature redistricted after the 2020 Census, enhancing two-term incumbent Rep. Steven Hosford’s (D-Nev.) grip on North Las Vegas on the seven-county CD 4 was among its aims.
Some pundits say the tactic will prove to be a failure by weakening Lee in CD 3 and, most significantly, Titus in CD 1, while Horsford, ironically, has done a good job endangering his reelection in CD 4.
Already facing a difficult reelection campaign, when Horsford announced he was running again, he was upbraided by his wife for wanting to return to Washington, DC, where he has admitted he’d been engaged in an affair with a former intern of the late Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid since 2009.
As a result, despite Democrats holding a 10.5 percent advantage in registered CD 4 voters and Horsford holding more than $2 million in his campaign kitty without a primary challenger, the Cook Political Report rates his prospects for a third term as a toss-up against the winner of the GOP primary.
And that appears to be a race between two of the three candidates battling it out in what has evolved into the most heated inter-party tussle of the state’s Republican primary slate.
State Assembly Member Annie Black is a relative newcomer to Nevada politics, but has made a name for herself since her 2020 statehouse election after being censured for refusing to wear a mask during legislative sessions.
Black, who, like CD 1 GOP primary hopefuls Serrano and Brog, is on the National Republican Congressional Committee “On the Radar” list of “Young Guns,” is a full-throated America First advocate who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021.
Black touts her ranking as Nevada’s most conservative lawmaker based on Nevada Policy Research Institute ratings and criticizes Peters for political inexperience and for orchestrating a “slime time” campaign against her.
In one recent campaign, “AnnieGram,” Black took note of “the most disgusting political mailer sent by the desperate low-life Sam Peters” that she maintained was “filled with vile lies.”
Among them is Peters calling her a “career politician” who has run for “five offices in the last five years.”
“Math is hard for some folks,” Black writes. “I ran for a seat on the Mesquite City Council in 2018 … and won. I ran for the Nevada State Assembly in 2020 … and won. And I’m now running for Congress. That’s … let me see here … one, two, three. In the meantime, Sam is on his second try for office after losing his primary in 2020. That doesn’t make him a ‘career politician,’ but his slime-time mailer does.”
Black didn’t enter the race until January, nearly a year after Peters announced his candidacy. As of May 25, her campaign reported to the FEC that it had raised $360,755, spent $193,236, and had $167,519 cash on hand for the final three weeks of the election effort.
Peters, a retired US Air Force Major and owner of a Las Vegas insurance firm, also identifies as a pro-Trump conservative whose agenda is to do what it takes to “fight the socialists” in Washington, DC.
Peters was defeated in CD 4’s 2020 GOP primary in his first-ever political campaign but acquitted himself well enough to earn the endorsement of the Nevada Republican Party, the Nevada Firearms Coalition PAC, and Public Safety Alliance of Nevada, a coalition of law enforcement groups.
By virtue of a near-year head start, Peters has raised nearly double the campaign cash Black has as their race draws to what is expected to be a down-to-the-wire clash between rural desert voters and more urban/suburban Las Vegas Republicans.
As of May 25, his campaign reported to the FEC that it had raised $716,382, spent $638,763, and had $81,155 in the bank.
