Gov. Brian Sandoval celebrates a new, red Nevada

By Kyle Roerink

Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 | 12:58 a.m.

The Republican sweep of statewide offices and the Legislature Tuesday turned the Nevada political landscape red.

Republicans won control with the same tactic the party used in national politics: Promoting the unpopularity of President Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Congress.

For some prominent Nevada Democrats, their careers are now on pause.

For Republicans, some first-time candidates are launching political careers with an establishment-backed momentum that Republicans didn’t see with the Tea Party wave in 2010. Gov. Brian Sandoval is at the helm with hand-picked Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchison. The Senate will be in the hands of Michael Roberson and the Assembly will be under Pat Hickey’s watch.

They are a cadre of power brokers with a history of working on moderate policy issues. They’ve yet to unveil their agenda for the Legislative session and the next two years, but with the statewide sweep there’s no doubt that plans are changing.

Here’s what you need to know about the state of state politics in Nevada after Election Night.

The House that Sandoval built

Just as he did at the Tesla bill signing, Sandoval asked a crowd of supporters a rhetorical question: “Is this a great night for Nevada?”

Nevada’s GOP is now in the driver seat of the state’s politics. To celebrate, they partied with about 400 donors, volunteers and supporters at Red Rock Resort's Cherry nightclub. But Nevada Republicans renamed it for election night: the New Nevada Nightclub.

The name change represents the New Nevada political action committee, a group that’s helped fund Republican candidates and causes across the state. But it’s also a sign of the times. In recent memory, there hasn’t been an era when one party has held both legislative chambers and every statewide elected office at the same time.

Sandoval headlined the celebration with a victory speech. He spoke humbly with his wife and children by his side, congratulating his Democrat opponent Bob Goodman. He also showed a little bit of swagger.

“You want to know what really makes me happy: To have a Republican majority in the state Senate,” he said.

The new face of the Senate, Assembly

Republican Sen. Michael Roberson had a good election night. He trounced his Democratic opponent in Senate District 20. He earned the title of majority leader. He proved that he’s as capable a strategist as he is a politician.

Roberson is the architect who designed the Republican strategy for taking the Senate from Democrats. The two candidates he courted, Becky Harris in Senate District 9 and Patricia Farley in Senate District 8, won their races and sealed the fate of the upper chamber.

Since he first ran for office in 2010, Roberson evolved from a red-meat conservative committed to cutting budgets to touting historically liberal talking points on the campaign trail. In his campaign’s mailers, he trumpeted his fight to expand Medicaid and increase gold mining taxes for education funding during the 2013 session.

When he took the stage, he didn’t say much. He thanked his mom for traveling from Missouri. He brought on Harris and Farley for a brief round of applause.

Harris is a Democrat turned Republican who now has a Senate seat in the Nevada Legislature. She ran for Assembly District 21 in 2012 but lost. As a candidate in this cycle, she was tight-lipped with the Nevada press, doing few interviews and providing little insight into who she is, where she’s from and her politics of the past. This is her first position in elected office.

Farley is also a first-time office holder.

The crushing blow for Democrats in the Senate is the short tenure of Justin Jones, the incumbent senator from District 9. He had a target on his back from the onset of the 2014 midterm.

His election was the key race for Democrats. But now he’s the victim of the shifting political fault lines in Nevada. Jones was elected in a 2012 special election. He won by a 300-vote margin and was hoping his district, which has a more than 3,000 Democratic registration advantage, would be able to turn out in this year’s election. Jones doggedly canvassed and made phone calls until the last hours of the election. But he couldn’t squeeze out a victory.

Republicans also appeared on their way to take over control of the Assembly. Democrats held a 27-15 advantage. But on Tuesday, Republicans held onto all their seats and picked up 10 seats that had been held by Democrats. If the results stand, Republicans will have a 25-17 margin.

State office sweeps

Given that Hutchison had Sandoval's support and $2.8 million in contributions, his victory came as no surprise. But the margin by which he beat Harry Reid’s anointed candidate, Lucy Flores, was the real surprise. He won by almost 30 percentage points.

He quoted Isaac Newton, saying that he was standing on the shoulders giants.

“I think of Brian Sandoval," he said. "I think of Dean Heller. I think Joe Heck. All three of whom endorsed me early and have supported me these long 16 months of this campaign."

The big surprises in statewide races: the upsets of Ross Miller and Kate Marshall. Both Democrats currently hold statewide office. Miller is the secretary of state and Marshall is treasurer. Both have spent the last eight years serving in Carson City.

But Adam Laxalt trumped Miller in the attorney general’s race and Barbara Cegavske beat Marshall for secretary of state.

At the beginning of the race, few thought they would do it. Now, the tides have turned.

As Sandoval said on behalf of all the state’s Republicans: “This is a night to remember. This is a night to savor.”

In the Nevada political landscape, today marks the beginning of a new Nevada.