Seven GOP candidates are vying for the party nomination in June 11’s Congressional District 3 primary to take on three-term incumbent Rep. Susie Lee in fall.
A professional poker player, a renowned video game composer, and a transgender rocker are among candidates, if not the frontrunners, seeking their party’s nod in Nevada’s Congressional District 3 (CD 3) June 11 primaries.
The southern Nevada district, which stretches from Las Vegas to Laughlin, has been represented by Rep. Susie Lee, a Democrat, since 2018. Ms. Lee defeated Republican April Becker by 3 percentage points in 2022 to retain her seat.
Nevada has four congressional districts. Three—CDs 1, 3, 4—are in south Nevada and occupied by Democrats. Northern Nevada’s sprawling CD 2 is a Republican stronghold where Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) is expected to easily win his primary without a Democrat challenger to secure an eighth term in the fall.
The three Las Vegas-area districts have been dominated by Democrats primarily with support from hospitality industry labor unions. During post-2020 Census redistricting, Nevada’s Democrat-run legislature plugged voters from CD 1 into CDs 3 and 4 to help party candidates in those purple districts.
All three southern Nevada House races are projected to be competitive. Cook Political Report classifies CD 3 as ‘Lean Democratic.’ Inside Elections and Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as ‘Likely Democratic.’
Seven Republicans are vying in CD 3’s GOP primary: conservative think-tank founder Drew Johnson, former Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz, ‘Halo’ composer Marty O’Donnell, entrepreneur and poker player Brian Nadell, former United States Agency for International Development official Steve Schiffman, former state lawmaker Elizabeth Helgelien, and cryptocurrency advocate Steve London.
There’s been little polling on Nevada’s House races despite numerous presidential election surveys in the battleground state—former President Donald Trump consistently pegs 3 percentage points ahead of President Joe Biden—but Messrs. Schwartz, O’Donnell, and Johnson appear to be the frontrunners. At least, that is, if money is a barometer of electoral success.
Out of the GOP candidates, Mr. Schwartz has raised the most, $921,903, according to his campaign’s May 22 Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filing. His campaign has spent $548,000 and has $373,877 in the bank, three times more than any rival.
Mr. O’Donnell’s May 22 FEC filing reported his campaign raised $540,633, spent $508,904, and had $31,729 cash on hand. Mr. Johnson’s filing showed $428,538 raised, $330,000 spent, and $98,533 in the bank.
Ms. Helgelien, with $270,502 raised and $24,113 cash on hand as of May 22, was the only other candidate to garner enough contributions to meet FEC reporting requirements.
Fiscal Policy Scrutinized
Similar to Republican candidates nationwide, CD 3 hopefuls cite the border and immigration, inflation, federal spending, and reversing the Biden administration’s green energy agenda as top priorities, especially in a state where mining for critical minerals, such as lithium and uranium, is hamstrung in regulatory knots.
Water, federal land policy, and affordable housing are among Nevada-centric issues being addressed by GOP candidates, but what may make the CD 3 race distinctive is the debate among rivals about fiscal policies.
Mr. Schwartz, who supports term limits and would lobby for federal education savings accounts for individual students, told The Epoch Times he is opposed to new taxes. “I think we can get to where we need to go by keeping an eye on the budget” rather than increasing spending, he said.
He points to actions as state treasurer in opposing the state’s failed commerce tax and boosting its bond rating from A to AA. “This may be somewhat immodest, but Chairman [Mike] McDonald and I pretty much saved the Republican Party in Nevada,” he said, referencing his time as state Republican Party finance chair between 2012 and 2015.
He’ll bring that savvy to Washington, an important asset considering the federal tax code is up for review in 2025 for the first time since the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act was adopted in late 2017.
“President Trump did a good job with the 2017 [bill] but, unfortunately, the middle class got left behind,” Mr. Schwartz said, vowing to improve the code to benefit middle and lower-income taxpayers.
Mr. Johnson founded the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, now known as the Beacon Center of Tennessee, and has frequently written about fiscal policy, taxes, and government waste for The Washington Times and, on occasion, The Epoch Times.
While working at the National Taxpayers Union, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, and the American Enterprise Institute, he said he’s written federal and state bills carried by receptive lawmakers that have saved taxpayers $60 billion.
“For the last 25 years, basically since I was in college, I’ve been working at conservative think tanks, conservative media organizations, and so my job has been giving good lawmakers good ideas to identify wasteful spending,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Schiffman, an attorney and serial candidate who has run for elected office as a Democrat and Republican, said Congress and state legislatures need to rethink why taxes are levied.
Taxes should only be used for “raising capital and government operations, not to change social attitudes one way or the other,” he told The Epoch Times, especially when the government relies on revenues generated on “sin taxes” levied against products such as tobacco, alcohol, and gambling.
“They want to use the tax system to eliminate the behavior, but then they’re cutting their nose to spite their face,” Mr. Schiffman said. “If you were to change the tax code to be more equitable for everyone, don’t use [taxation] for social experimentation.”
Why They Run
Mr. O’Donnell, the video game composer most famous for his work on the “Halo” franchise, said he was inspired to run for office because of the chaos in the House, which has stymied Republicans from thwarting the nation’s biggest threat, the Biden administration.
He’d bring a different perspective to a chamber dominated by lawyers, he told The Epoch Times.
“You don’t want 10 engineers making the game. You want an engineer, an artist, an animator, a composer, a writer, a designer—you want people who just approach the world differently. You don’t want all designers. You don’t want all composers. They would be horrible,” he said, before adding, “Most of the time, you only want one composer.”
Mr. Nadell, host of the Poker Politics and Patriotism show on Thursdays at 9 p.m. PST on the GCD Network, also maintains he’d bring a different perspective, and skills, to Congress.
“For the last 37 years, I’ve been a professional poker player, also a chess master, and I understand people,” he told The Epoch Times. “I’m going to take these powers and make them work, to see if there’s any way they would be helpful to this country.”
A devout reader of Thomas Paine and a “common sense conservative,” Mr. Nadell said electing him, and non-politicians like him would get Congress untracked from a quagmire fostered by ideologues.
“Washington is completely broken. They cannot get along. It’s like watching the Hatfields and McCoys except this is being done to the American people,” he said. “So what do you do when stuff is broken and you can’t fix it? You replace it.”
Mr. Johnson said he’d also bring less ideology and more actionable policy initiatives to the table if elected.
“We don’t have enough people who understand policy. We’ve got a bunch of people who want to go on Fox News and Newsmax and yell at each other and call Democrats idiots and call each other idiots,” he said. “We need people who can actually write policy, who understand how Medicare works, and understand how to fix Social Security.”
Mr. Schwartz said he also has unique attributes that would help Nevadans in Congress.
“To my knowledge, I’m the only real successful businessman, entrepreneur, in the group. I mean, other people are managers, but I’ve actually built a couple [of] businesses and exited from them,” he said.
That separates him from the crowd, Mr. Schwartz said.
“The people in Nevada have a choice,” he said. “With me, you can elect someone who has proven he can fight for you, fight for good policies and good causes, has served the country, has served the Republican Party and, when he goes to Congress, has a list of things he wants to do.”
Several GOP candidates were enthused by growing numbers of registered Republican voters in the district but both parties have seen enrollment stagnate while those registering as unaffiliated have nearly tripled since 2010.
According to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, as of June 1, 596,158 Nevadans were registered to vote in CD 3 with 185,031 signed on as Democrats, 154,891 as Republicans, 211,838 unaffiliated, and about 45,000 with third-parties, including nearly 26,000 with the Independent American Party.
In 2010, there were 438,896 registered voters in the district with 186,238 signed on as Democrats, 156,429 as Republicans, and 72,444 as unaffiliated.
“So it’s impossible for a Democrat to win on Democrats votes,” Mr. Schiffman said. “Republicans can’t win on Republican votes and if you’re an independent, you can’t win as an independent, so you have to have crossover votes” and appeal to moderate voters.
Awaiting the GOP scrum winner is Ms. Lee, barring an upset in the Democrat primary where her only challenger is RockAthena Brittain, a transgender DJ, musician, and LGBT activist.
Ms. Lee has raised more than $3.475 million, spent $1 million, and has $2.455 million in the bank, according to her campaign’s May 22 FEC filing.
Nathan Worcester contributed to this report