Will Heller survive? Is a 'blue wave' coming? Here's your guide to Nevada's primary vote

Editor's note: James DeHaven is the Reno Gazette Journal's politics reporter who will be covering the 2018 election. He will be following candidate filings when they start March 5. Follow him on Twitter @JamesDeHaven. Send him an email to jdehaven@rgj.com.

Nevadans who haven’t kept up with the state’s upcoming elections, take heart — the rest of the country is paying plenty of attention for you.

Three months before party primary voters decide which candidates will appear on November’s general election ballot, money and media attention has poured into races for the Silver State’s top political spots, among them an open governor’s seat and one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. Senate contests.

Washoe County — narrowly won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 — figures to play a decisive role in both of those races, as Democrats seek to close a slim 6,000-person countywide voter registration edge held by Republicans armed with a pricey new data-driven voter turnout initiative.

More: Laxalt at odds with other Nevada governor front-runners on gun background check initiative

Related: U.S. Senate hopeful Jacky Rosen looks to Reno to help swing the balance of Congress

Dan Coats, Nevada state director of the Republican National Committee, in January told the Reno Gazette Journal the program had collected a billion data points on Nevada voters ahead of this year’s elections.

Democrats plan to counter, in part, with some of the same much-vaunted social media organizing efforts that helped sweep former President Barack Obama to a second term in 2012.

That isn’t to say they’re neglecting shoeleather campaigning.

“We’re doing work registering voters door-to-door, making lots of phone calls,” said Denise Lopez, executive director of the Democratic Party of Washoe County. “I think if you look at the issues, a lot of people are concerned about mass shootings and health care and immigration.

“People care about the issues and that’s what’s rallying them around our candidates.”

Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said both parties are smart to emphasize the ground game.

Herzik said the political terrain favors strong Democratic candidates in many of the state’s marquee races. Still, he’s skeptical that weaker candidates will be swept to victory on a much-discussed “blue wave” of voter enthusiasm driven by anti-Trump sentiment.

“The blue wave might be overestimated a little bit,” said Herzik, a registered Republican. “I’m skeptical of the blue wave because it suggests Trump is such an anchor that Republicans aren’t going to turn out.

“But the Democrats have a potential problem in that their base has to be activated, and they have, in some cases, hotly contested primaries.”

Taken together, Western Nevada voters will help settle the outcome of three U.S. Congressional seats, six constitutional statewide offices, 14 spots in the state Legislature and dozens of judicial and municipal leadership posts.

Candidates can’t officially join those races before a two-week filing period set to open on Monday, though plenty have said they intend to run and have started raising the campaign cash needed to do so.

Here’s what we know about them so far:

U.S. Senate

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., is in the fight of his political life against Republican primary opponent Danny Tarkanian, a pro-Trump insurgent candidate who’s been deeply critical of Heller’s shifting stances on repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Heller, a longtime Northern Nevadan and experienced campaigner, has never lost a bid for public office. Tarkanian, by contrast, has lost five general election campaigns since 2004, though he has won three Republican primaries. His uneven campaign record hasn’t gone unnoticed by Heller, who has repeatedly bashed the Las Vegas lawyer and businessman as a failed candidate “whose only skill is losing elections and costing Republicans seats.”

Both top GOP Senate hopefuls have faced scrutiny over their business dealings, with Heller coming under fire for running an unlicensed hay farm and Tarkanian taking criticism for some $700,000 he paid himself out of his children’s basketball charity.

Should Heller survive a challenge from Tarkanian, he is expected to face a tough general election against U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.

Rosen, a first-term Congresswoman from Henderson, spent less than a year on Capitol Hill before she was picked to take on a vulnerable Heller — the only Republican Senator up for re-election in a state won by Hillary Clinton.

She is expected to breeze past a pair of familiar Southern Nevada Democratic primary challengers in the form of Bobby Mahendra and Jesse Sbaih.

Heller and Rosen have both made appointments to officially file their candidacy by March 9.

Nevada Governor

Both races to replace perennially popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval have been testy.

The Republican primary for the governor’s seat features two of the state’s top elected officials — Attorney General Adam Laxalt and Treasurer Dan Schwartz.

Laxalt, who has butted heads with Sandoval on key Nevada policy issues, raised roughly six times more campaign cash than Schwartz last year. Laxalt is seen as the favored candidate among national Republican organizations and conservative mega-donors.

Schwartz, for his part, hopes to win by embracing Nevada’s rural voters, frequently touting his business friendly, pro-school choice platform in some of the state’s smallest locales. He has also repeatedly raised questions about Laxalt’s integrity, even calling on the attorney general to resign amid an uproar over Laxalt’s efforts to enlist state staffers in a politically charged press spat over a pardoned prisoner.

The Democratic race for governor — projected to be one of the tightest races on the ballot — hasn’t been much friendlier.

Chris Giunchigliani and Steve Sisolak, both longtime members of the Clark County Board of Commissioners, have taken frequent swipes at each over a $2 billion taxpayer-subsidized stadium now being built to lure the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas.

Sisolak, who supported the project, has pick up key endorsements from several major Southern Nevada labor unions working on the stadium. He sees himself as the only Democrat likely to beat Laxalt, the Republican frontrunner, in a general election campaign.

Giunchigliani, a special education teacher, former state lawmaker and one of the stadium’s most vocal opponents, is seen as the more progressive choice to go before Democratic primary voters. She has been sharply critical of Sisolak’s moderate past positions on some of the issues most important to those voters, such as gun control, Planned Parenthood and marijuana.

Nevada hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since Bob Miller left office in 1999, though pundits and political observers say either of this year’s top Democratic candidates pose a real threat to change that.

U.S. House

Democrats didn’t have to look hard to find a replacement for outgoing U.S. Rep. Ruben Kihuen.

Faced with mounting pressure to resign amid a host of sexual misconduct allegations, Kihuen, D-Nev., announced in December that would not seek a second term representing Nevada’s fourth congressional district.

Six weeks later, no fewer than five Democrats had joined the race for the soon-to-be vacant seat, including former district representative Steven Horsford and longtime state Sen. Pat Spearman, D-North Las Vegas.

The recently formed battleground district — which spans an enormous swath of southwestern Nevada, running north from North Las Vegas all the way to Yerington — will also be sought by Cresent Hardy, the Republican who toppled Horsford in 2014.

Longtime Las Vegas City Councilman Stavros Anthony dropped out of the race to make way for Hardy, who is yet to attract a big-name primary opponent.

Jeff Miller, a little-known Las Vegas businessman and former radio personality, was the only Republican who had announced a run against Hardy as of Friday afternoon.

U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., may face a similarly smooth path to the general election in Northern Nevada’s lone congressional district.

Amodei, a Carson City native now seeking his fourth term in Congress, is set to face enigmatic former U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle in June’s primary.

Angle rose to prominence in 2010 after a combative and unexpectedly close race to unseat former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but suffered a lopsided defeat in Nevada’s 2016 Republican U.S. Senate primary. Federal election filings show the former Tea Party darling is yet to raise any money for her latest campaign.

Clint Koble, a U.S. Department of Agriculture manager appointed under President Barack Obama, in November announced his bid to run in the district’s Democratic primary. He’ll face familiar Democratic hopeful Rick Shepherd, who lost a primary race in the district in 2016.

State Legislature

Officials from both major political parties have cited Sparks’ Assembly District 31 as a key battleground in this year’s battle for control of the Nevada Assembly.

Jill Dickman, a Republican supporter of the controversial Las Vegas Raiders stadium project, lost the seat by a mere 38 votes in 2016 — just weeks after telling the RGJ that meetings with the Raiders made her feel a lot better about the stadium deal.

She is expected to try and take back the district from Democrat Skip Daly, who held the seat between 2010 and 2014, when he lost it to Dickman.

Democrats may also find themselves on the defensive in Assembly District 24.

Assemblywoman Amber Joiner, D-Reno, in November announced she would not seek re-election to the seat. Deonne Contine, the recently departed director of the Nevada Department of Taxation, has decided to run for the post as a Democrat.

Nevadans in the state’s 11 western counties will weigh in on 12 other state Assembly and Senate races in 2018. Nine of those seats are now held by Republicans, who are desperately trying to regain control of statehouse chambers lost in a blue wave of Democratic lawmakers elected in 2016.

Three Democratic seats, including a key post held by Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, could come in for a general election assault by Republicans.

As of Tuesday, only two Western Nevada Assembly candidates had made appointments to make their candidacy official with the Secretary of State. Deputy Assembly Minority Leader Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, is scheduled to file his paperwork on Monday. Democratic newcomer Autumn Zemke plans to submit forms to challenge Assemblyman Al Kramer, R-Carson City, on Tuesday.

Statewide officers

State Sen. Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, may end up getting more attention than the average primary candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

That’s because the Republican state Senate Leader is also waging a controversial ballot initiative campaign against sanctuary cities. No such cities exist in the state, but that hasn’t stopped Roberson from spearheading a proposed constitutional amendment that would make it illegal for Nevada municipalities not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Roberson hasn’t said how many signatures have been gathered in support of the the heavily litigated effort, which is now bogged down in the state Supreme Court. Scott LaFata, an entrepreneur and business management consultant, has announced he plans to challenge Roberson in the Republican primary.

Former Nevada Treasurer Kate Marshall, plans to seek the Lieutenant Governor’s seat in the Democratic primary. Former U.S. House candidate Chip Evans dropped out of that race and endorsed Marshall.

Southern Nevada attorneys Wes Duncan and Craig Mueller are expected to battle it out in the Republican primary race for Attorney General. No one has announced a bid to challenge state Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford for the Democratic nomination in that race.

Republicans Bob Beers and Derek Uehara have said they will file as candidates for Treasurer, as has Democratic former state Assemblyman Andrew Martin. Fellow Democrat Catherine Byrne has announced plans to seek the Controller’s seat.

Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske plans to defend her seat against Assemblyman Nelson Araujo, D-Las Vegas. Neither candidate has an announced primary challenger.