Sunday, May 17, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, which makes up much of Henderson, has gone back and forth between Republican and Democrat representation through its existence.
Incumbent Democratic Rep. Susie Lee currently holds the seat, which was created in 2003.
While the Democratic primary field is not as packed as the Republicans, there are challengers to Lee from both the party’s progressive and moderate wings.
Susie Lee (incumbent)
Lee has been working on measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, including federal stimulus aid for business. She also recently helped introduce legislation to expand workforce training initiatives.
“More Nevadans have filed for unemployment assistance in the last two months than during all of 2019, which means in the coming months hundreds of thousands of Nevadans will be looking to reenter the workforce,” Lee said in a statement. “To prepare, we need to invest now in training, career navigation, and other services to support both workers and businesses looking to keep workers employed.”
Lee currently sits on two House committees: Veterans’ Affairs, and Education and Labor. She was first elected in 2018 to the district.
Lee says she’s running for office because “the dysfunction and gridlock in Washington has been making it harder for Nevada families to get ahead. I know that our leaders in Washington should work together to find real solutions to problems in our community.”
Lee previously worked in nonprofits, where she was the president of Communities in Schools of Nevada, a dropout prevention group that serves more than 64,000 students.
Sullivan, a U.S. Navy veteran who has never run for office, criticized Lee for not working hard enough to help Nevada’s struggling education system. He aims to increase Title I funding.
Sullivan is also in favor a single-payer, government-run health care system.
“(We need) a system that can not only bring down the far above-average prices of our health care administration and medications, but also be stable enough to tolerate a pandemic without being overstressed,” Sullivan wrote on his campaign website.
Watson’s Facebook page casts her as a “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” Democrat. She touts an A+ rating from the Nevada Firearms Coalition, a pro-gun rights organization.
In a 2018 interview with Veterans in Politics, she said she does not support a ban of semiautomatic assault weapons. She also backs an audit of the Clark County School District, more local control of education decisions, and is in favor of charter schools.
She has retweeted messages of support for former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a moderate who sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Republicans
Nadell, a professional poker player, labels President Donald Trump the “greatest of all time.”
On his campaign website, he also touts conspiracy theories that Chinese-made pharmaceuticals are the cause of “what ails us” in America and that “technocrat foreign nationals” are the cause of censorship in America.
Nadell supports the construction of a wall at the southern border and ending chain migration, in which family members of existing immigrants come into the country. He’s also in favor of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — which some feel were overly generous to large corporations — term limits and a heartbeat bill banning abortion after eight weeks.
Newberry, who moved to Henderson in the 1990s and worked for 35 years in the apparel industry, is critical of Democrats for having sought the president’s impeachment.
Newberry advocates lower drug prices, more support for charter and private schools, and more funding for the public school system. He also backs some gun legislation — red flag laws, background checks and a limit of magazine sizes.
He also supports expanding Nevada’s access to water by requiring California to develop desalination plants rather than taking water from shared bodies.
Robinson, an actress and reality television personality, has linked her image inexorably to Trump, with many of her campaign photos showing her wearing some form of Trump merchandise.
Robinson backs a national concealed carry program, says undocumented immigrants should be deported, criticizes social media companies for a perceived anticonservative bias, and backs term limits in Congress.
Robinson touts her endorsement from political consultant and provocateur Roger Stone, who was sentenced to over three years in prison on charges including witness intimidation and obstructing a congressional investigation. On Twitter, she calls Stone her “friend and mentor” and criticizes primary opponent Dan Rodimer for not debating her.
Rodimer, a retired professional wrestler, has also linked himself to Trumpian stances in his bid for the congressional seat.
Rodimer supports the construction of a southern border wall, banning late-term abortions, cutting taxes for the middle class and corporations that bring industry back to America, and expanding school choice.
Rodimer, an attorney, has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Gold and Silver Pawn Shop owner and reality TV star Rick Harrison.
The Associated Press last year reported that Rodimer was accused on three different occasions of punching or throwing someone to the ground in Florida disputes at nightclubs and restaurants. He previously acknowledged a 2010 incident at a Waffle House in Naples, Fla., where he was arrested for battery, calling it “unfortunate” and saying he regrets it, the Associated Press reported.
Schwartz, the former Nevada state treasurer, supports revamping the education system, including enhancements to pre-K education, increasing teacher pay, and creating tracks for children who do not want to go to college.
The conservative businessman, who unsuccessfully ran in 2012 for Congress and in 2018 for governor, will advocate for a budget that helps reduce the multitrillion-dollar national debt.
“This debt has to be paid,” Schwartz wrote on his campaign site. “Our generation will not foot the bill, but our children and grandchildren will. We cannot continue to let Congress rack up more debt on their taxpayer-funded credit card.”
Schwartz has been endorsed by perennial GOP candidate Danny Tarkanian and his wife, Amy, who served as the state GOP chairwoman. He has also been endorsed by former state Assembly Speaker John Hambrick.
“With Congress being taken over by Democratic socialists, it’s time to fight back,” he posted on Twitter. “I fought for us in Nevada. This time I’ll do it in Congress.”
Victor Willert is a retired educator and principal who moved to Henderson from New York City in 2014.
Willert backs allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, creating a five-year agreement for recent college graduates to work in a government institution for limited tuition debt relief, and increasing military pay by $100 a month.
Willert also backs a restoration of the Social Security program to a point where it can only be used as supplemental income for older citizens and cannot be tapped for other reasons.
“(A candidate’s) core responsibilities are to be humble, willing to hear the other side and lead by example,” Willert said in a Ballotpedia interview. “The humbleness means that we are representing our constituents, not the other way around.”
