Rep. Joe Heck to run for Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate seat

By Kyle Roerink

Published Monday, July 6, 2015 | 7:16 a.m.

Updated Monday, July 6, 2015 | 10:36 a.m.

Setting up a battle that could tip control of the Senate in 2016, U.S. Rep. Joe Heck announced on Monday he will be a GOP contender for Harry Reid's U.S. Senate seat.

He's the only establishment Republican who has made the decision to run for the office and will likely be the candidate of choice for the party's moderates, freeing up a network of money and campaign volunteers that any primary challenger will have a difficult time defeating.

After the primary, Heck will likely face Democrat Harry Reid's hand-picked candidate: former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.

Heck's decision ends more than a year's worth of speculation about the GOP candidate for the seat. Gov. Brian Sandoval, who won re-election last year with more than 70 percent of the vote, was thought to be a shoo-in for the seat but announced last month that he wouldn't run.

Heck announced his campaign in a video posted online that touched on policy areas that will be top priorities in the state during the 2016 election cycle: immigration, health care and veteran issues.

In his announcement, Heck signaled he will try to win over the state's growing Latino demographic, which makes up about 15 percent of the state's voters. "Like my immigrant grandparents coming to America, most Nevadans came here for a new start, a better life and more opportunity," Heck said in the campaign video. "We turned the desert into a place of new beginnings."

He may face an uphill challenge in that task. Cortez Masto would be the country's first-ever female Senator with Latina roots. Though Heck has supported Republican-backed immigration reform and expressed frustration about the impasse on the issue in Congress. That will likely not deter activists and campaign operatives from bashing him on the issue. Last year, immigration advocates swarmed Heck’s campaign office, demanding him to call for a vote on a Senate plan that the House never passed.

Heck has also voted at least 37 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He’s been an outspoken critic of the employer mandate requiring companies offer insurance if they

have more than 50 employees, saying that it will kill jobs.

Heck has never ventured into a statewide race but has served two terms in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, a Republican stronghold seat that encompasses Henderson and Summerlin. The physician, Iraq war veteran, brigadier general in the Army reserves and former state lawmaker won overwhelmingly in his re-election bid last year.