Del Papa filing paperwork for Senate bid in 2000

CARSON CITY - Democratic Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa files paperwork on Friday needed to launch her candidacy for U.S. Senate - a contest that's seen as a squeaker.

Del Papa said she's filing a statement of candidacy required by the Federal Election Commission with the FEC and with the Nevada secretary of state's office.

News conferences in Las Vegas and Reno to announce her Senate bid are planned May 17.

"I've been testing the waters and I feel pretty comfortable that there's a lot of support there," said Del Papa, whose likely Republican opponents would be either former Rep. John Ensign or Rep. Jim Gibbons.

Ensign already has said he's running for the Senate seat in 2000. He narrowly lost a race to incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., last year. Gibbons hasn't spelled out his plans yet.

Asked about preliminary efforts to line up funding for the race, Del Papa said, "There has been a tremendous, positive response. Hopefully it will make me competitive."

"I might be outspent," she added. "But I want campaign conversations about issues and not about who has the most money."

Del Papa emerged as the leading Democratic possibility for the seat that Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., is vacating after former Democratic Gov. Bob Miller recently said he wasn't interested in seeking the office.

She was elected last November to her third four-year term as attorney general. Prior to that, Del Papa served a four-year term as secretary of state In both cases, she was the first woman to hold those statewide elective posts. Del Papa also was a university regent for six years.

A recent poll showed Ensign with 45 percent and Del Papa with 40 percent support. An additional 15 percent were undecided 18 months before the November 2000 election.

A Del Papa-Gibbons race was an even 42-42 split, with 16 percent undecided, in the poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. The statewide survey was done for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and KTNV-TV, Channel 13. Conducted April 22-26, it had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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