Latest / 775 Alive / Ep051: Nevada's Primary Wrapup

Transcript

Ep051: Nevada's Primary Wrapup · 775 Alive

• 0:01
  [upbeat blues music][Scott - voiceover] Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural economics, and general global shenanigans. I'm Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history we are likely to ignore. And with me as always is my co-host Crystal Newton, business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Saddle up for a wild ride through today's most important news. [music ends] Scott - Okay, welcome back here to 775 Alive. We just wanted to drop a quick episode because of course we're in the midst of primary election season across the state.
• 0:42
  political nerds.
• 0:42
  Scott - Well, it is very exciting. And Of course, we had our election primary election. June 9th was our election day. We should have the results by the time this episode drops at least here for Nevada.
• 0:58
  They started a week before us and they're gonna keep going for a few more weeks because it's California.
• 1:03
  Scott - You want to talk about California of the things about California I want to bring up is if we follow their election timeline, right, That's going to give us, what? An extra 30 days to sort of edit and drop this episode and still be relevant to California elections, right? Crystal - Yeah. So there's a few things. I mean, there they've found people homeless camps where they're actually harvesting ballots and filling out for them. Somebody actually just got sent to jail for that, which it's it's nice to see some prosecutions. But, uh California is allowing people to write the date on their ballot and they're accepting that. And I think we're going to get a Supreme Court ruling on that. But there's all sorts of shenanigans going on in California. But we did get a Republican through. Scott - Oh, yeah. Steve Hilton.
• 1:52
  Crystal - Yay. And I think it's just, I If a Republican has an accent, it's like we fly under the radar.
• 2:04
  think I think there's a couple more interesting things about that. So one, of course, what about a month ago, we did the interview with Chad Peace, who uh that Independent Voter Network, IVN project he's with. I was just noticing today they did a a podcast talking about the California elections and you know just how problematic this has has proved out to be. Of course, he's in favor of open primaries and he thinks a true open primary system would solve some of the problems, but I'm not convinced because one of the things California is looking at is there's a petition drive for a ballot initiative to get rid of that open primary system now. And a lot of it seems to be generated that they're upset by either a Republican getting on the ticket or that the possibility existed for two Republicans to get on the ticket.
• 2:56
  Republicans.
• 2:56
  Scott - Well, and and that's been that's been whenever we've seen either these open primary systems or like the French model, this two-turn, right, this two-stage election process like they do for president, what it what it seems to do is is in at least in my mind tends to actually accelerate a push towards single party systems, right? Or some sort of composite system that doesn't seem to be able to get anything done, right? In my mind, it seems to tamp down political diversity, not encourage it.
• 3:32
  mean, the mechanisms really aren't the thing in California because we've seen several mechanisms be implemented and then dismantled when they didn't get the result that they wanted. So, I know it's maybe not the mechanism. It's just California not wanting Republicans to be elected. I'll just say it.
• 3:43
  Scott - That's, and that's Sondra Cosgrove and Doug Goodman. Sondra, of course, we just did an episode on redistricting, but she's very interested in this open primary issue here in Nevada, which is going to come up a couple times because when we get to Nevada's election here in a minute, uh, that whole issue with the nonpartisan turnout is one of the big driving points towards this.
• 4:08
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 4:13
  I hope I got that right. Sorry, Doug. Him and I have been having conversations and I think at some point we might want to propose the four of us sit down and do an episode. I think it'd be an interesting discussion on the open primaries. But the California thing, just a couple things.
• 4:28
  So the lady who got charged with the homeless charges or the home, not homeless charges but you, know illegally registering and voting for homeless people.
• 4:40
  It's voting harvesting because they have them sign the ballot and a blank ballot and then they give it to them. I'm like, "Oh, that's worse than . . . " Scott - The idea they can help fill out the ballot. Well, and there's also charges that have come out made by the Pratt campaign in the LA mayoral race that they were actually paying people to vote, which has been controversial. Of course, back in 2020, we had a big controversy here in Nevada. That particularly on some of the tribes what they were doing is like, "Oh, if you come in and vote, we'll give you a gift card, a $25 gift card or something." Crystal - Yeah.
• 5:15
  bribing votes? I mean, these are some of the issues we're bizarrely having to deal with now.
• 5:20
  But the the point I wanted to make is the lady with the homeless votes that just got sentenced, that was for previous elections.
• 5:25
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 5:32
  now awaiting sentencing where she, in an act of spitefulness was stupid, right? But it's an interesting story. She registered her dog to vote and voted in her dog's name. Right? And you know it's sort of like there's obviously holes in the system.
• 5:42
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 5:49
  the Supreme Court, the big question in front of the Supreme Court, of course, we've had already had one decision in the Pennsylvania case that or . . . . Pennsylvania case where you know there there is such a thing or. No, excuse me, it wasn't Pennsylvania case, that's the one we're waiting on. It's the Virginia case in the redistricting, right, where they did this ballot initiative without, you know, they had to do it so many have it finalized so many days before voting started and they didn't do it so they didn't have the final language for valid question until after mail ballots have gone out and the argument they made well that's 45 days for election day, election day is the focus. But then on postmarking ballots, they argue it's election season. And you know, the ability to pick and choose from a legal framework is really a bad approach. So, we're waiting on the Supreme Court to make a decision on that. And I think California is just going to add more fuel to this fire.
• 6:40
  Crystal - Yeah, California I do want to talk about Nevada. And we political nerds, we get a little bit, um . . . . This is like when you hear sports people talk about the draft and they're picking members for the teams. Like that's how excited we get about it. The primary to me is like the draft and you like try to read it and see what the responses are. And I'm trying to read into all this data, but of course not many people turn out for the primary. So it's kind of hard to extrapolate data because you have a limited sample size. But I . . . did you take a look at the numbers across the board for Nevada elections for turnout, where and . . .
• 7:18
  Scott - I'm going to have to . . . excuse to get these right. So I'm going to put my glasses back on here. So statewide so far for 2026 primary we're we're looking about total turnout at about 21.7, 21.8%. So about one in, a little less than one, or a little more than one in five voters.
• 7:36
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 7:42
  podge. Right. So, somebody ran some stats. If we look at the congressional districts, of course, Nevada has four congressional districts. Three centered around Vegas, all of them seem to have somewhere between the 20 to 35% turnout for Republicans, right? CD2, which up here in the northern half of the 775, had over 40-some percent. Crystal - Yeah.
• 8:05
  difference and a lot of that was how contentious that CD-2 congressional race ended up being.
• 8:10
  Crystal - Right. Yeah. No, and you're right cuz it's it was weird for me. It felt like it was a boost for the primary, but now we're starting to hear on the back end from that contention. The people that lost their candidate are now like, I don't want to vote at all now. So, you're right. It could drive down the general turnout for Republicans.
• 8:26
  Scott - Well, I'm actually not sure that Republican turnout.
• 8:32
  I think there is a casual, I mean, everybody's been talking about the low-propensity Republican voters.
• 8:37
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 8:41
  voters that will show up in almost every election unless you really annoy them and then they disappear for an election. I think that's a slight possibility. Frankly, what I'm more worried about and I'm trying to put some data on this historically because I think it's an interesting issue, but I know here in Elko County, for instance, if we looked at the 2022 primary, which was the last time we had the governor's office on the race, right? Basically we had a very sharp distinction between Republican and Democrat turnout versus nonpartisans. But those nonpartisans who did turn out and in this race I mentioned over 26% Republican turnout in Elko County just over 30% Democrat turnout in Elko County. Uh, 6% nonpartisan turnout. So even with the possibility of being able to switch registration on day to vote in one of the things they just didn't do it. But about two-thirds nonpartisans who show up in general election tend to break for Republicans. And they were actually a huge key for Lombardo's victory which was very narrow over Sisolak, right?
• 9:43
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 9:49
  to vote in that CD-2. It's that if this turns into a repeat of what was a very nasty--and I, you know, a lot of people like "well you just have to do that." Well I'm not sure. I think that campaign, that CD-2 campaign here, actually turned a lot of voters off, right? Just the nastiness of the election.
• 10:08
  Some of the new techniques they were doing. I ended up fielding a bunch of phone calls from people that frankly were upset about the text messaging. What they were upset about in this . . .
• 10:19
  Crystal - And I did my share of fielding calls for these candidates and I was, like, well crap.
• 10:25
  the problem with the text messaging wasn't so much that the message within the text, it's just like you somebody would get them and they have that unsubscribe option. So, they'd unsubscribe and in two minutes later get the exact same message from another phone number.
• 10:37
  Scott - So the sense that they can't unsubscribe from the system just annoys them. It's people like, "well, they can go through the state and get their name taken off." Well, you know, I'm not really sure that's a viable option, right? Um, but anyways . . .
• 10:45
  Crystal - So what we're worried about right now is there's a split in the Republican party over CD-2 and the Democrats would love to get CD-2. So, we're super nervous right now between Republicans losing, let's just say enthusiasm, um, and Democrats gaining enthusiasm. I'm like, "Oh, please don't lose this seat. Please, please, please, please, please." Oh my gosh.
• 11:11
  Scott - Well, and there's also going to be a complicating factor, I think, within this. And again, I think the Republican side stuff will largely be healed, at least on the public facing for the vote, right? I do think there's been a lot of damage done on the back end. That's probably going to take years to be repaired. That's not apparent yet, but at least on the vote, I'm not really concerned about Republican turnout. Again, it's the nonpartisans. And what's interesting in this case is that a large part, as we talked about when we did the rural issues episode, a large part of that CD-2 race turned onto this weird debate between national issues versus local issues.
• 11:44
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 11:49
  Bonitz Thompson has won the Democratic primary, which I think everybody thought she was going to.
• 11:53
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 12:01
  right? Data centers that we talked about with AI, she's made some pronouncements on other stuff.
• 12:06
  And of course, one of the things we've been following, and I've mentioned this a couple times, Elko County really seems to be in particular sort of a focal point for, rural, uh, Democratic efforts to reach rural communities. And I think that's going to continue across CD-2 as well. Again, I don't think it's going to impact the Republicans. But I think we're going to have a real situation that if we have a Republican candidate that only wants to talk about banning Sharia law or Somali immigrants in Minnesota and a Democratic candidate that's talking about AI centers and water rights.
• 12:36
  Crystal - Yeah. Crystal - Well, and we know that a big chunk of Nevada voting comes from the independents and the independents aren't having the MAGA thing right now. They are not. And so I'm concerned that Teresa is going to do a great job of sounding like a center candidate and Flippo is going to be doing the MAGA thing. I mean, we all support Trump and we want to, you know, enshrine everything he's done and try to keep the wins that he's got. I get it. But we also need to understand that the independents are tired of it. They're they don't want to hear it. They want to hear some moderation. So, I'm very concerned about CD2.
• 13:11
  Scott - Right. Well, and I know . . . and it's a House seat, not Senate. We don't, you know, one of the problems we have is this is not an election where there's a Senate seat or a presidential seat. One of the one every 12 years. So, we're already dealing with a very low turnout issue. Right now, there there is an argument that that the last time this happened in 2014, Republicans did very well because they were able to drive out the base, right? But again, part of what I'm worried about is it might not be enough this time around.
• 13:42
  Crystal - Well, and I also think Amodei has been able to keep that seat for as long as he has because he is such a centrist candidate. He appeals to both sides. And I'm like, Flippo does not. And again, I appreciate the the track he's taking. It's not a criticism of him. I'm just thinking it's not the winning track.
• 13:57
  Scott - Well, and you know, I do out here in the rurals, right? Washoe is a different story because the impact of Reno, but I don't think they're going to get successful. But again, we've seen not only a series of meetings with the rural Democrats have been out here, and I'm going to pick on Elko because I know these are happening, right?
• 14:18
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 14:23
  held rural meetings out here over the last couple years. Ro Khanna from California, who's undoubtedly going to be running for 2028 presidential run, setting that up. He's been out here twice. I got invited to a couple of those events. Even I would say I think that was a part of the reason although it was a great interview, but Adrienne Marsh from Altum Insights when she reached out I mean she's a Democratic strategist and is really interested in in understanding some of these issues. I think there's a real interest out here for the first time in a long time because in the the diagnosis of the Democratic election performance that's been going on since 2024.
• 14:57
  They're realizing rurals are a problem for them. And I'm expecting them to see to use a CD-2 race, which is open for the first time in what, 15 years. They're really going to try to use that to deploy some strategies. And I'm not really sure the Republican establishment has quite caught on to that issue yet, right?
• 15:14
  Crystal - So, I have a question. I don't know if you can read anything out of this data, but it was super interesting to me. Joe Lombardo won with over 90% of the vote and the next highest vote getter was None of these Candidates. So what does that mean?
• 15:27
  Scott - What was that?
• 15:36
  Sorry.
• 15:36
  Crystal - What does that mean? Is that the voter, like, who is that voter? Those 3,000 voters that said nobody.
• 15:42
  Scott - Well, and for those of you outside of Nevada, we do have for state races, although not for county or municipal or federal, of course, an option to choose None of the Above. It's sort of ridiculous because it's not binding.
• 15:53
  Crystal - It's not . . . it's the political way to flip off the process.
• 15:58
  Scott - Well, yeah. I mean, that's Well, that shows you a couple things. First of all, I think it's an example of the solidification of Lombardo's position on the Republican side. I don't think there was any doubt, but the fact that a couple of his candidate opponents, of course, you and I have done a lot of talking, we haven't had a chance to do an interview, but done a lot of talking with Matthew Winterhawk over this campaign cycle in various settings. He gave us a huge shout out when he made that visit to Winnemucca and saw our banner up, right? You know, the fact that him and Irina Hansen both didn't score higher than None of the Above. I think . . .
• 16:42
  Scott - Both of them ran non-traditional campaigns.
• 16:42
  Crystal - Well, I expected Winterhawk to be a little bit bigger because he did cover so much ground. He did meet with a lot of people I know. The guy I've had people like text me, do you know do you know this Winterhawk guy? I'm like, yeah, I do. I like him. He's a little bit too high energy for me, but I'm more the Joe Lombardo. I like my leaders to be cool, calm, and collected. But the guy, I expected him to do a lot better than that, though. I'm . . .
• 17:01
  Scott - Well, I sort of expected too. I was surprised with how well Irina Hansen did. Who I've never met her in person. As far as I know, she's never been out to Elko County. But one of the interesting things about Irina Hansen and Winterhawk both, and this gets back to your point, they both ran campaigns that leaned heavily into these AI-generated flyers and stuff. The use of AI and campaigns is really, I think, one of the uniquenesses of this particular primary cycle. What do . . . you what was your concerns about AI?
• 17:36
  Crystal - I thought that Spencer Pratt's AI video, I spent an evening watching his videos and I was largely entertained. And then right after I watched that lot of Spencer Pratt videos was when the AI stuff started coming out between Settelmeyer and Flippo. And of course, it was a little bit more somber and serious because it was my own home territory. So I scrutinized it a little bit better. But it very quickly became apparent to me that, you know, if every politician did these types of videos, it would very quickly go out of vouge because it's just kind of ridiculous and hokey. And at the end of the day, you kind of want to go back to . . . I want to see a traditional, you know, I want to see you talking like a normal person. I think it'll be a bit of a flash in the pan once everyone starts using it. We'll be like, ah, it's another AI video.
• 18:24
  Scott - And for the Settelmeyer videos.
• 18:30
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 18:36
  coming into the western town and and drawing on all the tropes.
• 18:36
  Crystal - I'm not sure what the copyright laws are on that because that looked exactly like Flippo. Do public figures not have the same protections as everyone else? Scott - No. No. And political campaigns are even lower. And in fact, we were talking about the show, you thought how unique it was AI coming up in this election.
• 18:58
  But one one of the things that I'll point out is it actually came up fairly strongly in the last election. There were some AI generated content in one of the Republican primaries down in Vegas, and that actually led to the Secretary of Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar here in Nevada proposing a bill was known as AB73. I actually testified against it in its original form at the Legislature because what they wanted to do was basically they wanted that any type of AI-generated ad would basically have to be cleared by the Secretary of State's office or they could issue fines for what they considered fake content. And it . . . I mean the problem I had with it, and I still have a problem with it, is I think we've learned having the government determine what's fake is probably the absolute worst policy decision. Crystal - If I remember right that just strictly pretend, pertain to slander, right?
• 19:50
  Scott - No. Well, what happened is in its original form, and why I testified, is they were trying to draw distinctions. So, for instance, somebody brought up in one of the testimonies, what happens if you have a candidate holding a baby and the baby throws up on them and you go use Photoshop to take the the vomit smear off their shirt, you know, that's probably not AI. But the problem you have is when you have the Secretary of State's office saying, and again, this is this is the Flippo-Settelmeyer race is a good example because so much of that turned on to what a lot of people saw as as mischaracterizations of Settelmeyer's voting record, right? That he voted on something in 2013 that now means something different in 2026 and trying to draw the continuity. You could have in the original version of that bill a Secretary of State saying, "Okay, this is the truth. This is the falsehood," and you're going to get a $50,000 fine, right, because of that. And and that's that's wrong. What they did, and I think this is a much better approach, and I'll point out that one of the people who are really concerned about this was actually the news media. They were afraid if they did a story about an AI-generated ad, they would be subject to these fines because there was no exemption.
• 21:02
  Crystal - That's why brought it up, the slander . . .
• 21:07
  the slander thing came from is iwhy this wasn't apparent up front. It wasn't AI. This is really a slander issue, when you mischaracterize somebody's position. And what Nevada ended up doing, which I think is the right approach, is basically creating an expedited process for the aggrieved party to file suit in the courts. Right? So, it's not the Secretary of State determining what's true or false. It's that if somebody's claiming slander, we're going to make sure this doesn't sort of percolate for eight months, right? We're going to have a process where this can be resolved fairly rapidly. I think that's a better way. But I bring it up that it was AI that sparked these debates about all this.
• 21:43
  Crystal - Yeah. No, I just wonder because as a business person, you have to be very conscious about using other people's images and stuff.
• 21:54
  Like if I created an AI video of me talking to Donald Trump and him talking back and forth, I am 100% certain the Trump organization would sue me immediately and they would issue a cease-and-desist letter. So, I'm kind of curious where the lines are because it's like you you're using the image of someone else. And I get there's a different category for public figures, but I don't think I could get away with creating a campaign ad with me and Trump in it. I don't think that work.
• 22:20
  Scott - It's going to depend on, all.
• 22:27
  Crystal - Right.
• 22:34
  between you and let's use President Trump where you know he's saying stuff something he wouldn't normally say that would be problematic, or making claims he endorses you or whatever, right? That's problematic. I think is . . . that would get you into trouble. But if you're doing something, I think where you're creating a conversation where you know your part of this ad is, "Hey, you know, Mr. President, I'm so grateful of the the job you're doing on X, Y, or Z." And he says,"Yeah, I was so proud of that achievement." Nothing's going to happen, right? I don't think you're going to hear, you're not going to hear anything about it because the context is different.
• 23:10
  Crystal - Well, we'll definitely find out. if lawsuits are going to fly, then they're going to fly after this election cycle. So, we'll see.
• 23:19
  Maybe the court system still has to work out the details on this.
• 23:19
  Scott - Oh, yeah. Well, and it's not just this is this is something I mean, Hollywood's going through this with the AI use of actors and everything else. This this is going to be a big issue that's going to take a decade, I think.
• 23:31
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 23:31
  Scott - But in the campaign space, to campaigns for years when you have the headlines and the picture of the candidate, and that's not, that's fair use, right? Here's a public statement. Here's the results of a vote they made.
• 23:48
  That I don't think AI is going to go different. I think it's going to only be if you are again like a defamation standard or slander statement. If you consciously attribute to them something they didn't do.
• 23:58
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 24:04
  I think you're going to be in real trouble that they didn't do right. Serious stuff. Right. But I think it does leave a bad taste in people's mouth and I think that's the biggest issue with this right now.
• 24:16
  Crystal - I mean, it was entertaining, like I said, at first, but I could quickly project that this if every politician was doing it, I would get burnt out on it really fast. What was your impression when you watched that? Did you watch any AI videos? Are you watching?
• 24:30
  Scott - Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I watched quite a bit. And Spencer Pratt's campaign was . . . Well, and one of the things is Pratt's campaign, particularly the Star Wars one, right? Where he's the Jedi taking on Karen Bass and Gavin Newsome as the Emperor and Darth Vader. Darth Vader and the Emperor.
• 24:44
  Crystal - Okay.
• 24:50
  and Karen Bass was like the Incredible Hulk or something like that and he's really mad that he's cleaning up the streets.
• 24:54
  Scott - Yeah. Well, but see, that right? Um I mean it gets pushed and it's interesting that frankly the people who seem to have a lot of problem with parody is actually, is actually the Democratic side right now.
• 25:05
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 25:12
  Scott - But that is protected.
• 25:12
  Crystal - But as humor, what did you think?
• 25:18
  I think it's a novelty. I don't think it's going to be a solid basis. Now, I will tell you one Spencer Pratt thing that wasn't AI that I thought was the most brilliant ad campaign I've seen in a in a while, was where he sent the people out with the stencils that said, "Imagine this street was clean. Vote Spencer Pratt." Putting them on these LA streets and then pressure washing the message.
• 25:40
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 25:40
  Scott - Into the dirt build up on the street. That was a heck of a powerful ad that wasn't AI, but that was, or at least I don't think it was AI. I mean, you can certainly do that, but that I think was a very interesting and powerful message. Crystal - And I got to say, I was thoroughly educated on the homeless industrial complex and the issues through Spencer Pratt's videos. And so that actually regardless of whether he wins or not, cuz to be honest, the mayor of Los Angeles can't do much because even if you start prosecuting and take off the street, you still have a DA that's going to turn around on cashless bail and put him right back out. So there's not a lot he could have done. But his running and putting out those videos and teaching people how this homeless industrial complex works and that they're actually importing people from other states, I think that's enough for Californians to start to rethink this whole thing. This is not just, oh, these are, you know, people that are down on their luck and they have nowhere else to go. Let's be nice to them. This is this is an industry. And I think Californians might start to understand that.
• 26:37
  Scott - Yeah. And I think there's something else here too that, you know, gets us back a bit to the CD2 race is that what makes those images or what makes that type of campaign approach so interesting is that it's actually focused on issues. It's not focused on straw figures. It's not focused on bogey men. It's like, okay, this is why we're having that case. And I actually think that's far more attractive to both these casual Republican voters and nonpartisans.
• 27:02
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 27:08
  things, I mean, we saw this in the CD-2 race where a lot of the stuff on social media back-and-forth is like, yeah, you keep claiming that the other guy's bad, but what the hell are you going to do?
• 27:12
  Crystal - Right.
• 27:16
  Scott - And I think that's really a big untapped resource right now. And I get candidates don't want to do that because, you know, two years down the road that's going to throw it up. But you know the the truth is you need to talk about these issues. We're not going forward if we don't talk about these issues.
• 27:31
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 27:36
  why we're doing this is talking through this stuff that's sometimes uncomfortable.
• 27:36
  Crystal - Yeah. And we haven't been around that long as a country. 250 years is not that big. But even with our short span we've been able to identify cycles within our populations. And it just seems like, you know, every few decades we have this welling up and people get angry and outraged and there's a whole bunch of chaos and then it settles back down. And it it never lasts for that long. And so I would think it would behoove most politicians to get ahead of that trend line and go head back to center before it becomes mainstream because they'll be the first ones there and it won't look disingenuous.
• 28:12
  Scott - Right. And I think . . . well I agree with problem isn't so much sort of a nebulous idea that political ideologies get out of control.
• 28:23
  I think what happens you have institutions that naturally age and that's where we are. Some of these institutions that we've had 50, 60, 70 years now aren't serving the purpose. Whether that be NGOs that might have been set up to deal with occasional homelessness in a situation of the mid-70s, late 70s when they suited the culture of those generations, right, they're no longer solving the problems we want them to solve. Crystal - Yeah.
• 28:44
  Scott - Right? And I think . . .
• 28:50
  and it's just such a thing, I think.
• 28:50
  Scott - Well and that adjustment requires conversation and that's that's one of the things I think we've largely lost in the political context. Good example of this is the ongoing issue about debates, right? Going back to Matthew Winterhawk, you know, he challenged Governor Lombardo to 17 separate debates in all 17 counties of Nevada, Carson City as a county in this context. And you know is is sort of like that's just not going to happen. That is a big, big waste of time. And some political pundits have argued, well, you know, the problem is debates seem to be attractive only to the challenger candidate who thinks they can get the establishment figure to trip up. But one of the things that's happened is we're not seeing debates even once the primary is set anymore like we used to 20 or 30 years ago.
• 29:33
  Crystal - Right.
• 29:39
  Scott - Right?
• 29:39
  Crystal - You mean having a definitive debate?
• 29:47
  Metin Pekin was talking about this unfolding in that his model of no-party democracy, mandatory debates, at least before the legislative bodies. But the truth is that you know I think there's, I think there's a real interest in going back to at least parts of that. No, we probably don't need 20 debates. I mean that's, that's . . . you're just going to exhaust people, right?
• 30:08
  You, we don't have the bandwidth that somebody had say in 18, you know, 57 Lincoln and Douglas traveling the country having these debates. But the same point, the number of election cycles we've had here over the last 10 or 15 years where there's been no debates, none whatsoever, I think one of the things that does is it sort of reinforces this idea that you only have to talk to this small audience and it more than anything else I think leads a lot of people feeling to be frustrated that unless they go to that audience, they don't get to hear from these candidates.
• 30:40
  Crystal - And the polarization in this country, it's like, you know, if you just talk to the other side, they're at least you figure out they're not a monster. You know, they're just a person that's coming at problems at a different from a different place. And you know, the moment both sides start to talk, then it, you know, that center reveals itself. The commonalities reveal itself. They're there. It's just our culture is looking through this lens of what divides us, what camp are you in? And it's like, well, you could also look like what brings us together? That's another lens. And so, you do need those debates to bring that frame for people like, hey, we're all trying to work on this thing together.
• 31:11
  Scott - Well, and that's key and you know, it gives you options. It gives you stuff. So are the candidates this cycle around going to embrace debates? I'm not really sure. We're going to have to see.
• 31:28
  I, you know, on my part I'm trying to encourage it for whatever little influence I have, right, because I think it's very worthwhile but you know ultimately it's going to be campaigns decisions and unfortunately I don't think a lot of campaigns have stomach for debates anymore, right, which is something I think we've really lost.
• 31:46
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 31:52
  right? Back to the Nevada races. You brought up an interesting thing about the endorsement issue.
• 31:58
  Crystal - Yes. I wanted to know if you it up because it may be seen as a little bit negative towards Lombardo and I don't mean that-- but most of the candidates that were endorsed by Trump won and not many of the Lombardo-endorsed candidates won. Do you make anything of that? Scott - Yes and no. I think the Trump endorsement still plays a role in the primaries. The the real question is, I think, over the last two election cycles, it hasn't done anything in the general. Crystal - Sure.
• 32:31
  been a real problem, right? In fact, some people have argued it's been a negative in the general.
• 32:38
  Right. And so that's something to I think watch for. Lombardo's endorsements. I don't--again that CD-2 race where Lombardo endorsed Settelmeyer, as did Mark Amodei who rarely makes endorsements. I don't think that's definitive of anything just because that was such a weird race.
• 32:54
  The other one you brought up and probably the most surprising race out of all this was the Secretary of State's race, right, where Jim Marchant won with almost no campaigning whatsoever, except maybe a little bit down in Clark.
• 33:05
  Crystal - Just the smallest margin he won too. Isn't that a cliffhanger for a little while?
• 33:11
  Scott - Well, it was and part of it was it was divided, right? So Sharron Angle . . . and again I will say to Sharron's credit, she put in far more effort and energy than any of those other Secretary of State candidates, not only visiting people and talking to people, but some of her research, and if I would say anything, she's one of the few that understood the Secretary of State's office doesn't just do elections.
• 33:35
  Crystal - She wrote a book about it. seen it.
• 33:41
  Scott: Right. Right. No, no, no. She did campaign cycle she did a lot of policy briefs that were really good looking at this. I think the real problem with Lombardo's endorsement on this, for some reasons that we, you know, I'm not comfortable with sharing. I think there was some behind the scenes tragedies that went on within the Folkins-Roberts campaign that pulled her off the campaign trail.
• 34:14
  thing I'm concerned about is I'm kind of seeing indications of a split in the Republican party and I just I'm looking for all those little hiccups in the seismometer to be like, which way is it going?
• 34:26
  Because it kind of seemed like this primary was about either Nevada first or Trump first. And I kind of saw it between the Trump endorsements and Lombardo endorsements.
• 34:37
  played out. But Lombardo actually made much fewer endorsements this time around than he normally has. Or at least in my . . . I think he made some endorsements in state-level races. Or state assembly and senate races but I don't really . . . I think most of those actually panned out okay for him.
• 34:53
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 34:59
  the more they're like Nevada first and then up to the national level is more of like the Trump endorsement level stuff.
• 35:04
  Scott - Well, no. And I and . . . that I would argue is is sort of natural. I mean, you do want people in your local community concentrating on local issues, not this Washington stuff. I think part of what's going to go out and what's going on is, again, as I've said, you know, those national and local issues are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but you do have to understand that they're also not synonymous, right? And balancing that gap, I think, is something that people are looking for. Again, I don't think there's going to be an electoral split with Republicans, right? I think the electorate is going to turn out. I actually, and there's been a lot of analysis. Mini Racker over at the Nevada Indy has done some really good stuff on this. I really don't think that this is going to be too surprising of a general election, right? I think Republicans will keep that CD-2 seat. Of course, one of the rumors now is how much money the Dems are going to dump into it.
• 36:03
  Crystal - Yeah, that's what worries me. But I want to talk about one, three, and four, then. Carrie Buck is looking like a very promising candidate, but I don't know. Do you think she she can get the numbers?
• 36:17
  Scott - Um, she's going to, my opinion--and again like you, you know, good friends with Carrie--I think she's going to have to run a much more aggressive campaign than she did in the primary and a much more directed campaign. She was . . . I don't want to say absent during the primary. But she really needs to bump it up. Of course, Dina Titus is in a lot of trouble. A lot of people are dissatisfied with her, and she's been screaming since 2021 that district was redistricted that to eventually give Republicans an edge, right? Um, Okay. Crystal - Marty O'Donnell, right, won over Aury Nagy. Marty O'Donnell is . . . I think he composes music for video games is what . . .
• 37:02
  Scott - Yeah, particularly the Halo series.
• 37:08
  Crystal - Okay. Yeah. Mostly self-funded campaign. He kind of I don't know. He kind . . . did he come out of nowhere? What does the CD-3 look like? Is that Susie Lee?
• 37:15
  Scott - Yeah, it's Susie Lee's district. He didn't come out of nowhere. If I remember right, he ran for that race in 2024, right?
• 37:27
  Crystal - I heard Susie Lee is very, very, very well-funded and her district is very, very, very Democratic.
• 37:27
  Scott - Well, no, I think that's true. And that was another field that was sort of interesting.
• 37:39
  You know Marty, we talked to him a few times. I had a chance to actually have some conversations with Tera Anderson, who compared to when I first met her about 18 months ago in Winnemucca has emerged as a much stronger, much more knowledgeable candidate who could argue positions. I actually think Tera is going to go somewhere. Handicapping that race is hard. I think they're going to dump a lot of money to keep it. But Susie Lee's made some some blunders here recently. The drunken vulgar rants.
• 38:12
  Crystal - I watched some of her recent stuff and I was like, "This is no good." I've actually watched actually Dina Titus and Susie Lee and Horsford in Congress making speeches and I hadn't heard them before. And I'm embarrassed that they represent Nevada.
• 38:32
  I'm not just saying that as a Republican. I'm like, "These are really poor arguments.
• 38:35
  This is pathetic." And sorry, I'll be nice. I think Marty is doing a very good job of co-opting Turning Point and really using that apparatus to try to get out the vote and get out that younger group. So, we'll see what happens. That would be kind of cool. That'd be like a dark horse race, wouldn't it?
• 38:52
  Scott - Well, I don't know if it'd be a got Turning Point . . . One of my problems, and I felt this since we were at the America Fest, right? Sat in on some of the voter turnout things. One of my problems with the Turning Point approach is that they're very narrow, right? Their approach is going to be only looking at low-propensity Republican voters. They don't really want to try to reach out to the nonpartisans more. Yeah. I mean it's something that works very well for a primary campaign.
• 39:25
  It could backfire. Not saying it will, but it could backfire in a general election.
• 39:29
  Crystal - Okay.
• 39:29
  Scott - Particularly when you have ballot questions. Of course, ballot question seven, voter ID is on the ballot for a second time here in Nevada. Number six, the abortion medical care thing that, you know, would allow like high school sports coaches to give abortion pills and stuff like that. Very weird. That's really where I think nonpartisans probably need to be . . .
• 39:53
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 39:59
  in reaching that group, which is an error, I think.
• 39:59
  Crystal - That's so sad. After Charlie died, I kind of watched that organization turn inward and it really made me unhappy because I'm like ahhh . . . you just killed the growth of that thing. It's going to be a defensive organization now. Dang it.
• 40:17
  Anyways.
• 40:17
  Scott - Yeah, I think it's more a tactical error than the strategic.
• 40:22
  end is already won over. You're not going to win over those voters. They're already won over. Like, stop spending time on them. We need to move to the center and get the people that are waffling, which are the independent, those . . . Anyways.
• 40:29
  Scott - Yeah. And to be honest, neither side is really aiming at that right now. That's one of the reasons I think we're in this political polarization in this, what, 40-year period where we are a 50-50 country still.
• 40:39
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 40:45
  fundamental problem. Neither side has been able to get enough support to shift it one way or the other.
• 40:50
  Crystal - Yeah. And I mean, the Democrats got such a strong forward motion on, you know, we're terrible extreme MAGA people that if any of our candidates started to talk like a center person, they would fall head over feet over . . . their strategy would just completely collapse. It's like all it takes is for these candidates to move to the center just a little bit. Anyways.
• 41:07
  Scott - Well, yeah, I think it's a little bit more complicated than that, but the general outline, the truth is the more you engage, more you engage people, I think that more than anything else builds trust and desire to participate in the process, right? Shutting the door and like you're not our type of people. I think even if it brings you short-term victories, and I think this is part of what we've been seeing with the Trump endorsements and primaries across the nation . . .
• 41:38
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 41:38
  Scott - . . . is that, you know, yeah, we've been really can't clear it in the general election, right? Sam Brown's a great example of that, right?
• 41:48
  And it's not surprising that those candidates, and it not the only reason, right? But, you know, those candidates like Lombardo that have not leaned as heavily into the Trump endorsement at any stage of the process seem to be doing more, more solid, right?
• 41:58
  Crystal - Yeah. You want to talk about CD-4?
• 42:05
  Scott - CD-4. Well, congratulations to Cody.
• 42:13
  don't know, Flippo jumped out of CD-4 into CD-2. So, it was Flippo versus Whipple for the longest time. So . . .
• 42:17
  Scott - And then they put another, one that was another heavily contested, heavily . . . well heavily nasty campaign race. I'll put it that way, right? I mean, at one time Cody's mother gets dragged into this, right? By his campaign and there are some other stuff going on.
• 42:31
  Crystal - The whole family got drug into that, whole family Scott - And again ,we've interviewed Cody, as well as you know Dave Flippo as well, when they were both in the CD-4. And we've done some stuff with both of them. In fact, you know we did a round table at Cody's. We're not sure if we're going to broadcast just because the quality wasn't what we wanted to. It was an experiment. So, but even if . . .
• 43:01
  Crystal: They had a fight over Israel in that round table.
• 43:08
  done before the current Iran situation. No, I think that's an interesting race. I think a lot of people I've talked to think Stephan Horsford has that locked up, right? Now it's been a question of why. Is it simply because of his appeal there in Vegas in a predominantly Democratic area?
• 43:29
  I don't know. But I don't think he's made enough missteps. Interestingly, I think Horsford has made far fewer missteps than either Susie Lee or Dina Titus down there in Vegas.
• 43:36
  Crystal - Yeah, he's well put together, but I do encourage people to watch him actually in Congress on C-SPAN because I don't . . . I can't even have words, Scott. I don't know what these people are trying to do when they make the statements that they make. I just . . . it seems ignorant and stupid.
• 43:54
  Scott - Well, part of my argument of Horsford, and actually all three of them, is they haven't really done much, right? Which is a good way to prevent being criticized. But . .
• 44:03
  Crystal - Well, they don't do much in Congress. That's what I'm trying to say is I watch them and they make these non-statements that are completely disruptive and they're not helpful and not productive and I'm like, what are you doing? You're just making us look dumb.
• 44:15
  Scott - Yeah, I do think Cody has an opportunity to, out of the ones that are running for this, I think the CD districts, I think he's the one that has the best chance to make a tack towards the center and make it stick.
• 44:27
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 44:33
  involved. And some of his kids. And it's like, it's kind of cool to see that. You don't see that much anymore.
• 44:38
  Scott - Well, I mean, it would be cool to see that. I mean, of course, you know, Trump's family's involved in stuff. I think how that campaign shook out, it wasn't the best light. I don't think it's damaging to Cody. I do think, though, that I think he's in a unique position and it's going to be an interesting race. Of course, CD-4 covers the southern half of the 775. So, it's going to be an interesting race to see how that, that turns out.
• 45:01
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 45:07
  he won it fairly handily, right? 60-some percent. So, it wasn't even a close contest.
• 45:14
  Crystal - There's some really good people in Nevada running for office. Like really good people. And some of these people, I don't think it's fair to mention them by name because I don't want to like not mention other people, but some of these people have taken time out of their campaign to help me personally with stuff that had nothing to do with the campaign. And I just I'm in awe at the middle of campaign season that they're willing to still help someone that's not even their constituent solve a problem that has nothing to do with them. And I just . . . Nevada, I really hope they appreciate some of these people because it's so rare to find people like this in the country.
• 45:55
  think that's I think that's true. I've been impressed by a number of them that are continuing to be engaged, at least, you know, a week or so later, that have committed to continuing to be engaged.
• 46:04
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 46:10
  Scott - Well, not just the CD-2 candidates. I mean, some of them are. That had been a surprising race. But no, some of the other races, some of the candidates, you know, Matthew Winterhawk has pledged to continue doing some of his stuff. That's been interesting.
• 46:28
  A couple of the other state-level candidates have already been publishing articles looking at, you know, okay, here's what the landscape looks like now, even though I lost.
• 46:39
  Here's, you know . . . I think being engaged in the process is better. We're in a stage of, across the country, we're in a change of personnel, for lack of a better term, right? It's not just age. I'm not one that this automatically means, you know, every 30-year-old is going to get into a position. But I do think we have a change in leadership at various levels that's going on. We're having new voices come out. And to be honest, that's good. That's something we should actually be encouraging throughout the thing. And again, this gets back to sort of my concern that some of the damage that might have been done from this CD-2 race might actually freeze that process in in CD-2 as people have just been incredibly frustrated or actively being targeted. But I don't . . . you know, we'll recover. But I think that if we had if I had to identify anything, I think that was the most interesting thing out of this election cycles. We're starting to see some new ideas and some new thoughts come to the forefront, right? Not just on the Republican side. Again, I point out that the Democratic effort to reach out in the rurals is something frankly I don't think a lot of the Republicans are really prepared to how to counter that.
• 47:47
  Crystal - No, I was terrified when I heard Bonitz, um, what's her name? Teresa Bonitz Thomas? When I heard her . . .
• 47:53
  Scott - TBT.
• 48:01
  "Oh, we're in trouble." Cuz I, in my mind, I was comparing, I was side by side comparing her speech patterns and her affect to David Flippo's and I was like all the independents are going to her. Shit.
• 48:15
  Scott - Again. We've got six months to the election, or five months. I mean there's going to be a lot of changes. Um, I . . .
• 48:19
  Crystal - She's so well spoken. It's . . .
• 48:28
  spoken. It's also the issue of being able to speak in languages or speak on issues that people want to hear.
• 48:34
  Crystal - She could go off issue. She has everything. She is on it. And I'm just . . . she's formidable.
• 48:39
  Scott - Yeah. And she's a policy wonk, right? I think that's something else. Now there were some, a lot of problems in that.
• 48:50
  That was another crowded field. There was a lot of problems. Kathy Durham did surprisingly well, much higher than I would have thought. Of course, she's from West Wendover up here in Elko County.
• 48:59
  Kathy and I have worked on numerous projects and sat on panels and stuff together over the years. She did surprisingly well expressing rural issues. We had some other people I think, in that Democratic race that were surprisingly strong on rural issues as well.
• 49:17
  That I think there is a bit of a change coming on if we can look at it. Another thing, though, stepping out of the CD-2 race. I don't know how much attention you paid to this, but from my aspect, probably one of the more interesting examples of what you're identifying was actually the Democratic attorney general primary between Nicole Cannizaro, who won, right, Senate Majority Leader, and Zack Conine, who was the Treasurer. And that was another one that became a very nasty bit of a race, right? Titus endorses Zack Conine and now she's on the losing side of that.
• 49:51
  But part of what was interesting about that race, at least from my perspective, and again, I'll point out I've done some work with Zack Conine when he was Treasurer, he has a lot of popularity out in the rurals, right? In part because he so successfully managed the PPE program during COVID that saved a lot of small businesses out here in the rurals.
• 50:10
  Whether one thinks that program should have been implemented, I think it's a real feather in Nevada's cap that Zach managed that to to the extent that we don't see the massive fraud charges we're seeing in other states arising out of this.
• 50:22
  Crystal - All right. Yeah.
• 50:26
  Cannizaro who's a very urban-oriented, Vegas-oriented candidate.
• 50:26
  Crystal - Okay. Did he work?
• 50:36
  with Caleb Cage?
• 50:36
  Scott - Who, Zach?
• 50:43
  time.
• 50:43
  Crystal - Right. Right.
• 50:49
  administration, right? And, you know, that like everything else during COVID, it's going to take us another 10 or 15 years to unravel that. I mean, the argu . . . the thing that's so interesting to me is why on earth did that not . . . why was that managed out of the treasurer's office as opposed to controller's office, right? I mean, the controller is the one who's supposed to pay bills, right? But that's a whole other story. But my point for bringing it up is that was another contested race. It's not just the Republicans that had this this go around. Treasurer's race was surprising. Howard Watts getting, losing the primary down in Vegas.
• 51:25
  Crystal - Who won treasurer?
• 51:34
  Drew and Jeff Carter.
• 51:34
  Scott - Yeah, Drew Johnson won Crystal - I hadn't heard.
• 51:35
  Scott - Yeah. 3,000 votes last I heard. It might be a little bit more than that now, but it was a very close race.
• 51:45
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 51:51
  but anyway, it's going to be a . . . I think we're going to have a bit of a jump here in the election cycle coming up, right?
• 51:56
  Crystal - How so?
• 52:02
  get to September about this, right?
• 52:02
  Crystal - Uh yeah.
• 52:09
  spark up. But I think there's also going to be . . . we'll have a better idea where the Trump administration is, right? Where the economy is. I think we also got a number of ballot questions which really are going to shape the 2026 general election in Nevada.
• 52:20
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 52:27
  on how those shake out, I think is going to play a role that we didn't see in the primary because ballot questions are never on the primary.
• 52:32
  Crystal - Did you have any kind of read on Ford versus Lombardo for the general?
• 52:38
  Scott - You know, people were ranking at 50-50. I actually give Lombardo a slight, slight edge. I think Ford's run at attorney general has left some problems.
• 52:58
  Interestingly, of course, the Republican Adriana Guzmán Fralick won that attorney general race, and that had been a centerpiece of her campaign is, you know, that that in her view, and I happen to agree with her, that attorney general's office isn't really . . . it's been focused on these national issues and hasn't hasn't really been doing the stuff that it should be doing for Nevada voters. And that's one of the pledges she's made is to reverse that. Crystal - Well, if I'm Democratic Party right now, I'm seeing that I've mastered the Nevada legislature. I've completely captured it.
• 53:33
  All I need to do is get a Democrat as governor and you can pass all the bills that got vetoed. And it seems like that would be their number one thing would be to go after that governor's chair. And I'm curious . . .
• 53:42
  Scott - Well, except I think that the Legislature than they've been in a while, right? Republicans aren't going to gain the majority . . .
• 53:53
  Crystal - They could lose a few seats and still be okay. Scott - Well, actually, I don't think they can.
• 53:59
  Scott - Right. Yeah. I actually think that one of the problems we saw at this disaster of a 2025 Legislature was just having, being one vote short of a supermajority in each of the chambers, the Senate and the House, right? Or the Assembly and the Senate. I think, and the fact that the Republicans stood together on a lot of issues, I think really stymied the Democrats' ability to get anything done. And I think even a three to four seat Republican pickup changes the Legislature. I think what you're going to find is we're going to see more stuff like what happened with the film credits bill where there were divisions across party lines, not just between the parties, right? I think that continues if Republicans pick up even two or three seats, right? If they pick up more, it changes the dynamic. I . . . that doesn't devalue what you said about governor, and that's been one of the arguments that's come up about why we're . . . One of the things that's interesting is we could see a really contentious lieutenant governor's race emerging.
• 55:04
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 55:11
  lieutenant governor well you have Stavros Anthony who was able to do some . . . I don't want to say damage control but particularly his ability to get back in and stop that last minute effort to change the Legislative Consultation Bureau after Ira Hansen did that filibuster, for lack of a better term, at the last minute I think played a role, but he's running up against Sandra Jauregui who is, you know, she's a master of these legislative processes. And I think that is one of the things that's going on is you have a Democratic side that's very much worried that even if they lose one or two more seats, trying to get anything through the House and the Senate, or the Assembly and the Senate is going to become far more complicated than they've been used to.
• 55:50
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 55:55
  Scott - Right. And that legislative background is going to help. So anyway, I know it's in the weeds. You're not a weed person.
• 56:02
  Crystal - It's not. No, it's not. I'm just like I'm you know that governor seat is everything if we lose that, that's that's the whole thing for us. So I'm just nervous. I'm nervous. Yeah.
• 56:13
  I'm nervous.
• 56:13
  Scott - I'm nervous too. But I think Republicans will hold. I think the question is really sort of guaranteeing the nonpartisan turnout. And I think a lot of that actually is going to come down to these ballot questions, right? Which I think you're going to start seeing emerging as really big issues.
• 56:31
  Crystal - Yeah.
• 56:39
  thoughts on this election or . . .
• 56:39
  Crystal - Yeah. Well, I'm not doing campaign stuff. But that initiative seven and six. I think seven, is that Dave Gibbs on the . . .
• 56:52
  Scott - That's the voter ID one.
• 56:52
  Crystal - Melissa Clement for six?
• 56:57
  sort of the centerpiece on the push to vote no on six on the Republican side.
• 56:57
  Crystal - I just wanted to say these things take five, six years to do. So, I just wanted to shout out to those two because that's I mean that's representative-level work invested without any of the credit. So, those two are awesome.
• 57:19
  Scott - Right. Right. They've throw on on ballot question seven, when Dave Gibbs was running Repair The Vote PAC, Logan Gifford worked down there, he just got awarded a Republican 30 Under 30 award. So congratulations Logan. And you know so it's going to be a contentious season and we'll probably end up doing a couple more campaign or election episodes I think. So . . .
• 57:48
  if you have any comments about this, I know it's been a little bit more rambling, but these are these are hot spur-of-the- moment thoughts. Go ahead and shoot us an email at info@775alive.com.
• 57:58
  But until next time, I'm Scott Gavorsky.
• 57:58
  Crystal - And I'm Crystal Newton.
• 58:14
  [upbeat blues music]