Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Heck sets up high-stakes showdown with Senate run

Nevada Republicans Election Night Watch Party

L.E. Baskow

Republican Rep. Joe Heck and his wife, Lisa, celebrate his election victory at New Nevada Lounge on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014, in Red Rock Resort.

As the front-runner to be the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Rep. Joe Heck will fight for something the GOP has wanted for decades: Harry Reid’s seat. He will also vie for another major Republican goal: Retaining control of the legislative chamber.

Of the 34 seats up for election this year, Nevada is at the top of the list for conservatives. Taking the elusive seat would be a critical victory in a cycle where Democrats are hoping to take at least five seats from the GOP to regain the Senate majority they lost in the 2014 midterms.

A Heck victory will likely deflate those efforts — as well as delivering a crushing blow to Reid, the retiring Democratic senator who’s had the seat since 1987 — which is why national groups are mustering to influence the race.

It’s an outcome that’s very much in doubt. On Monday, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics listed Nevada as one of only three toss-up states in the entire country. As the nation’s politics continue to polarize, wins in truly purple states like Nevada command outsized importance.

Nevada is a wild card, according to Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the Center for Politics. In 2012, President Barack Obama won the state, but GOP Sen. Dean Heller won a seat in the Senate. In 2010, Republicans elected Brian Sandoval to the governor’s office, but Reid won his fifth term to the Senate.

“For Democrats, Nevada is the most endangered Senate seat,” Skelley said.

The Republican National Committee, a group that fundraises and campaigns for GOP candidates nationwide, already has campaign staff on the ground in the state. “You can’t box Nevada in,” Fred Brown, an RNC spokesman, said on Monday.

The GOP is focused on wooing Latino voters and growing its statewide operation.

In Nevada, Latino voters lean Democratic. Of the 215,00 registered Latino voters, around 50 percent are registered Democrats and less than 20 percent are Republicans. However, there are at least 200,000 unregistered Latino voters up for grabs, and the RNC has made a “major investment” in that community, Brown said.

The RNC wouldn’t disclose how many operatives it has in the state, but Brown said it was “significant.” Those staffers include Chris Carr, who ran the conservative grass-roots group Engage Nevada. Carr was named regional director for the West for the RNC in February and recently was promoted to national director.

Heck’s likely general election Democratic challenger, former state attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto, would be the first Latina elected to the U.S. Senate. She’s also Reid’s hand-picked candidate, something Republicans say may not swing the outcome of the race: “The Reid Machine was really good at getting Reid elected, but not anybody else,” Brown said. “It’s not there for the [rest of] Democrats.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is wasting no time in attacking Heck as a Washington insider who caters to big businesses. “We look forward to the comparison of their records,” Justin Barasky, a DSCC spokesman, said in a statement.

Heck, a two-term congressman in the 3rd Congressional District, a Republican stronghold seat that encompasses the suburbs of Henderson and Summerlin, currently lacks a primary challenger. The physician, Iraq war veteran, brigadier general in the Army reserves and former state lawmaker won re-election overwhelmingly last year.

Heck’s announcement ends more than a year's worth of speculation about the seat. Gov. Brian Sandoval, who won re-election last year with more than 70 percent of the vote, announced last month that he wouldn't run.

A separate battle is shaping up over who will run to replace Heck in the third district. No serious contenders have announced, but Republicans have signaled that state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson may run. For their part, Democrats are wooing former Secretary of State Ross Miller.

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