* Dave Crete, former chairman of the Republican Party in Maricopa County, AZ, is reportedly running against incumbent Clark County GOP chief Jesse Law. Election scheduled for this summer.
* Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections notes the battle for the House of Representatives in 2024 will feature “66 competitive races overall: 33 seats currently held by Democrats, and 33 seats held by Republicans.” Republicans currently have a razor-thin majority they’ll be defending.
* Rubashkin lists Nevada’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts as “Lean D” and the 4th district as “Likely D.” All are currently represented by Democrats.
* The 2nd district, held by Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, is considered a “safe” seat.
* Heard it through the grapevine: Former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee is being talked about as a potential GOP candidate for Nevada’s 4th congressional district vs. incumbent Dem Rep. Steven Horsford.
*Also heard rumblings that former conservative Assemblywoman Annie Black was thinking of giving that race another run for her money, but Annie tells me that’s off the table.
* In CD1, Flemming Larsen – who OVER-performed in his run for State Assembly in east Las Vegas last year – has announced he’s gunning for Dina Titus next year. He’s already actively campaigning. If you show up somewhere and see an old, bright-red fire engine, that means Flemming is probably there.
* Flemming’s wife, April – who also OVER-performed in her run for State Senate last year – is being woo’ed to run for the Assembly seat Flemming ran for in 2024.
* Spoke with both at a lunch last Friday. They’d make a dynamic duo if they both ran again.
* Also spoke with Clark County Commission Chairman Jim Gibson. He said a new Registrar of Voters for Clark was probably going to be appointed “soon.”
* And at the same lunch, former Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske introduced me to our new Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar. Very productive conversation about our new Pigpen Project. Seems like someone I can work with to clean up the voter rolls.
* The Las Vegas Review-Journal listed a number of potential GOP candidates for next year’s U.S. Senate race in Nevada.
* Of those mentioned, I’d say the two more likely candidates are Sam Brown, who ran for Senate and lost to Adam Laxalt in the primary last year, and April Becker, who lost a tough general election race for CD3 last year but outperformed most other Republicans in the same voting precincts.
* Neither has committed to the race at this time.
* In 2015-16, Trump picked off his GOP rivals one-by-one. Not sure that’s gonna work this time. My guess is the opposition will be ganging up on the 45th president in what former House Speaker Paul Ryan labeled as a “Never Again Trump” contingent.
* Former Vice President Mike Pence sure appears to be preparing for a presidential run. On Sunday at the annual Gridiron Dinner he unleashed his harshest criticism yet on the man he once served under in the White House…
“President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day (January 6), and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
* There’s a coordinated campaign on social media pushing the notion of Ron DeSantis as Trump’s running mate rather than the two running against each other in next year’s GOP prez primary.
* But when you look at how Trump treated Pence in the end, why in the world would DeSantis ever agree to it?
* Speaking of DeSantis, who brought his expected presidential campaign to Las Vegas on Saturday, some are wondering why he likely won’t formally announce his candidacy until after the current session of the Florida Legislature concludes.
* One reason might well be because of a Florida law that requires elected officials to resign from office if they run for a different office. Speculation is that the Legislature may change the law during the session to allow DeSantis to run for prez without giving up the governor’s office.
* Is it just me, or does anyone else find it rather odd for Trump to attack DeSantis on initial lockdown decisions at the start of COVID when he, himself, ordered the first “15 days to stop the spread”? And wasn’t it Trump who gave us Fauci and Deborah Birx?
* I seem to recall an old saying about people in glass houses…
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“High gas prices are why I’ve proposed suspending the state gas tax, which will save the average Nevada family hundreds of dollars a year. Legislators, let’s get this done for all Nevadans this session.” – Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views and blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.