Dueling Democrats hope to hop on a blue wave in ruby red Nevada congressional district Ex-U.S. Senate hopeful joins two little-known Democrats in race for Northern Nevada's lone congressional seat

James DeHaven | Reno Gazette-Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Nevada primary election votes pouring into Washoe County Registrar of Voters Votes are brought to the Washoe County Registrar of Voters on Tuesday, primary election day in Nevada.

Democratic candidates say there’s something different about the upcoming primary election in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District.

They suspect President Donald Trump — and the “blue wave” of progressive enthusiasm some have predicted he’ll bring to the polls — has softened the rocky landscape Democrats face in the Republican-friendly district that encompasses most of Northern Nevada.

Still, either Rick Shepherd or Clint Koble is expected to emerge from next month's primary contest with a less-than-enviable task: Loosening the GOP stranglehold on a congressional seat that has never been won by a Democrat.

Shepherd, a self-described “Berniecrat” who lost a bid for the district in 2016, has sought to position himself as the more progressive choice in the race.

The information technology company founder said he was the only candidate on the ballot with a track record of community activism, pointing to his involvement in the recession-era Occupy Wall Street movement.

Koble, an Obama-era appointee to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has cast himself as the more experienced pick for the Democratic nomination. He’s betting relationships built with the district’s rural voters during his time at the USDA will help carry him to victory at the polls.

Republicans still enjoy a roughly 48,000-person lead among the district’s registered voters, only adding to the confidence U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., will bring to his fourth congressional re-election bid.

Amodei also appears to have more than enough money to win next month’s race for the GOP nomination.

Federal election filings show the Carson City Republican has jumped out to a commanding fundraising lead over former Tea Party darling and U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle.

Angle — who rose to prominence in 2010 after a combative and unexpectedly close race to unseat former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — has cited what she sees as Amodei's soft positions on Obamacare and immigration among the reasons she decided to challenge for the congressman's position.

The former state Assemblywoman has raised roughly $9,800 for that campaign, or only about 2 percent of the nearly $670,000 in campaign cash stacked up by Amodei. Campaign disclosures show the pair are the only GOP candidates to raise any money in the district's four-way Republican primary contest. Republicans Joel Beck and Ian Luetkehans are also seeking the nomination.

Koble has raised more than $42,000 in support of his inaugural congressional bid. Shepherd has so far collected about $35,000. Both hopefuls — the best-funded among six Democrats in next month's primary — are waging largely self-funded campaigns. Democrats Patrick Fogarty, Jesse Hurley, Vance Alm and Jack Schofield are also running in the contest.

Early voting for the June 12 primary election, which is open only to registered voters from both major political parties, starts on May 26. Before voters head to the polls, here’s where the candidates stand on the marquee federal policy issues, based on their answers to 30 policy questions posed by the Reno Gazette Journal.

The questions were sent to the two best-funded Senate candidates from both major political parties.

Guns

Amodei said he was open to any and all proposals aimed at preventing future school shootings, including legislation that would raise the legal age to buy a gun to 21. Angle opposed that idea, as well as an Amodei-backed bill meant to tighten the existing federal gun background check system.

"We have a violence problem, not a gun problem," Angle added. "These are school murders. Shooting is a sport. Murder is a crime. Schools should not be free-crime zones. Crimes committed anywhere should be addressed by law enforcement."

Koble and Shepherd split slightly on gun control policy. The pair both support implementing instant background checks on gun purchases, banning bump stocks and high capacity magazines. Only Koble said he would seek to limit ownership of assault-style firearms. Shepherd said he would support raising the legal minimum age to purchase a gun to 21.

Koble backed so-called "red flag" laws that would permit parents or law enforcement to ask a judge to temporarily restrict gun access for to people deemed a danger to themselves or others. Shepherd said he wouldn't endorse metal detectors or other measures that would "turn our schools into prisons."

Immigration

Amodei, long considered a pro-immigration Republican, said the vast majority of undocumented immigrants now in the U.S. should be able to earn legal status.

Angle said undocumented immigrants should be able to learn how to legalize their status under existing immigration law, or develop a plan by which they can repatriate and apply to reenter the country legally.

The pair agreed that convicted criminals should be deported and aligned on the need to beef up U.S. border security, though they shied away from directly endorsing Trump's proposed multibillion-dollar border wall.

The Republicans also dovetailed on the question of sanctuary cities.

Cities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities "encourage lawlessness," said Angle.

Amodei said the self-declared immigration safe havens presented a direct affront to federal authority.

"With all due respect to cities around the country, you can call yourself whatever you want, but you don't get to say you don't recognize federal authority in the immigration and naturalization department," he said.

Koble and Shepherd agreed there should be a pathway to citizenship for many of those living in the U.S. illegally.

Shepherd said authorities should only deport those who have committed violent crimes. Koble said felons and anyone who poses a risk to the community should be sent back home. Neither candidate supported Trump's border wall or a controversial proposed statewide ban on sanctuary cities.

Health care and abortion

Amodei deferred to Nevada voters on the matter of abortion. He said he agreed with their decision in a 1990 referendum that allowed the procedure through the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. He said he has voted to continue funding for Planned Parenthood not because the group provides abortion services, but rather because they provide important walk-in clinic services to many of his constituents.

Angle said she wouldn't vote to continue funding for the organization. She said abortions should be limited to cases when the physical life of the mother will be lost due to the pregnancy.

If elected, Angle vowed she would seek to repeal Obamacare, but not replace it. Amodei said it would be a "disaster" to tear down the broad 2010 health care reform without putting something in its place.

He said he was "interested" by some of the policy proposals presented in the Graham-Cassidy health care amendment — an oft-discussed Obamacare replacement option that would give states control of Medicaid and cap funding for the federally administered low-income health care program broadly expanded under Obamacare.

Both GOP hopefuls signaled support for imposing additional work requirements on recipients of food stamps, Medicaid, housing aid and other forms of social welfare.

Neither took a definitive stance on the question of legalizing marijuana at the federal level, though Amodei said he supported steps to reschedule the drug into a less-tightly regulated class of controlled substances.

Koble and Shepherd would both like to see pot legalized nationwide. The latter said he’d seek to take even more drugs taken off authorities’ radar. The district's top two Democratic hopefuls opposed putting additional work requirements on Medicaid recipients and opposed the Graham-Cassidy-Heller amendment.

Neither opposed continuing funding for Planned Parenthood and both said abortions should remain legally available. Koble said he supports a single-payer health care system that would use taxes to cover the costs of essential medical care for all U.S. residents. Shepherd said the best way to go about that would be to provide Medicare to all Americans.

"Every other answer involves the imposition of insurance companies, their overhead and profit-seeking," he added.

Tax, financial and electoral issues

Asked what changes she would make to to existing financial regulations, Angle didn't hold back: She wants to do away with the federal government's right to levy taxes.

Angle proposes replacing the 16th Amendment with a consumption tax which would allow "individuals the choice to pay taxes on purchases other than essential(s) such as food, which should not be taxed."

Amodei took a more cautious approach, explaining he supports a Senate bill introduced in November that would unwind some of the "excessive regulations" spelled out in the recession-era Dodd-Frank financial reform act. He said that law, which heightened oversight of banks in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has proved an undue burden on community banks, including several Northern Nevada lenders.

The Carson City congressman doubled down on his support for December’s sweeping, $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that provided permanent tax cuts for corporations and tax relief for the bulk of Americans in 2018.

Angle, too, offered praise for the high-profile tax package. She also supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s polarizing decision in Citizens United vs. FEC — a ruling often blamed for giving rise to a flood of so-called “dark money” political groups.

Amodei said there's too much money in politics, but stopped short of endorsing efforts, recently popular among Democrats, to undo Citizens United.

Koble said Citizens United had poisoned the country's political landscape and should be overturned. Shepherd said tossing out the ruling would count as a start toward addressing what he sees as the scourge of money in politics.

Koble vowed to protect existing recession-era financial regulations and reinstate those repealed by a Republican-led Congress. He, like Shepherd, also committed to upending part or all of the recently passed tax rewrite.

"Already I see the increasing deficit causing pressure to reduce Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that benefit middle class and low-income Americans," Koble said of the tax bill.

Yucca Mountain and public lands

Amodei in February said it didn't matter whether he was for or against Trump's divisive efforts to restart the licensing process at Yucca Mountain, the long-stalled nuclear waste dump about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

He predicted the House would overwhelmingly vote to re-open the site, and that he would consider supporting such a bill, provided it didn't turn Nevada into "a nuclear landfill." The longtime Congressman's forecast came true early this month, when he cast one of only 72 votes against a licensing bill that he said would've turned Yucca into a "simple dumping site."

Angle agreed the fight to stop dumping at the site was all but over and it was time to start talking about how to best transport, use and recycle waste headed for the site.

Amodei, a frequent critic of federal land managers, has championed bills that put more than 70,000 acres of Nevada public lands back into local control.

He's previously called for the return of even more of the nearly 50 million acres the Bureau of Land Management controls in Nevada, though he did not specifically renew those calls in a February editorial board meeting with the Reno Gazette Journal.

Angle advocated for the repeal of laws that “prohibit or inhibit the best multiple use” of federal land.

Koble didn't directly answer a question about whether the federal government should have less control over Nevada's public lands. Shepherd said federal authorities should retain that responsibility, estimating that it would cost the state more than $30 million annually to maintain the lands if transferred.

Both candidates agreed waste shouldn't be stored at Yucca, though Shepherd remained open to reprocessing spent fuels at the site.

Education

Neither Amodei nor Angle directly answered a question about how much public funding, if any, should be awarded to private schools.

Concerns over the role of public dollars in parochial classrooms have grown amid a surge of new charter schools that take student vouchers and scholarships funded by the government.

Angle wants the federal government to butt out of education entirely. The Constitution does not provide the federal government control of schools, she said, adding that responsibility should be kept "as close to the local level and local stakeholders as possible."

Amodei largely agreed, explaining there were states rights issues involved and that he'd have to take a closer look at the issue before answering.

Koble and Shepherd opposed redirecting public dollars toward private schools, preferring to reinvest those dollars in public classrooms.

#MeToo movement

Policies surrounding sexual misconduct have moved to the political foreground since the start of the #MeToo movement, a social media-driven wave of support for thousands of victims who came forward with sexual misconduct allegations that rocked Hollywood, the media and politics.

Amodei said he supported all steps taken in the House to address workplace sexual harassment and discrimination. He said he required staffers, including interns, in all three of his offices to complete training on how to recognize and prevent harassment.

Asked if the government had done enough to address existing misconduct claims against officials, Angle said only that Individuals should not be tried and punished by the media or by mere accusation. She said those found guilty in court should be punished as criminals and immediately removed from office.

Koble lamented that many government agencies keep no records of misconduct claims and impose inconsistent penalties on prohibited behavior.

If elected, Shepherd said he would push to stop the use of taxpayer dollars to settle harassment claims.