Nevada lieutenant governor race could have national implications

LAS VEGAS — Two weeks before the election, early voting began in Nevada. More than 20 political organizers filed in to a room at the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, one of the state’s most powerful labor groups. The union represents more than 55,000 casino and hotel workers, from housekeepers and cocktail waitresses to cooks and doormen — more than half of them Hispanic.

The room is a sea of red. Union members taking political leave from their jobs to get people to the polls are wearing bright red T-shirts emblazoned with bold white letters that leave no mistake about their mission: “Las Vegas vote now!”

The union’s focus is on Nevada State Senate District 9, which covers parts of Clark County. The union is backing Democratic incumbent Justin Jones, who is in a dead heat with Republican opponent Becky Harris. If Jones loses, Republicans would likely take control of the Senate by reversing the Democrats' 11-10 majority.

While that state Senate race is the focus locally, Nevada’s lieutenant governor’s race, which rarely draws attention beyond state lines, is garnering all the attention on the national stage.

The importance of the part-time lieutenant governor’s job is magnified this year because if Gov. Brian Sandoval, who is up for re-election, wins as expected but leaves office before the end of his term — his name has been floated for a 2016 U.S. Senate run, a presidential ticket and a Cabinet post in the next administration — Nevada’s lieutenant governor automatically becomes governor.

The race is shaping into a heated battle for party control between two top guns in the Republican and Democratic parties — Sandoval, a Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

Sandoval, a northern Nevadan who faces token opposition and is a shoo-in for re-election, almost immediately put his clout and money behind a lawyer from southern Nevada running for lieutenant governor, Republican state Sen. Mark Hutchison, 51.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat from the small town of Searchlight, an hour from Vegas, faces re-election in 2016 and a potential challenge from Sandoval. Reid jumped into the lieutenant governor’s race by putting his party’s support behind a young and charismatic Latina lawyer, Democratic state Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, 34.

Either way, it will tip political clout in the Western swing state to reflect demographic realities. Until now, the whiter, more conservative and rural northern part of the state around Reno has dominated state politics, largely because of higher voter turnout, even though Las Vegas’ more diverse Clark County at the southern tip of the state is more populous.

“The governor smartly realized that the best insurance policy is a southern Republican,” said Robert Lang, director of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas’ Brookings Mountain West, a partnership with the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Almost 74 percent of Nevada’s population is in Clark County, he said, but “southern Nevada has not seen an effective translation of its demographic dominance.”

Of Flores, David Damore, an associate professor of political science at UNLV, said, “She’s young, ambitious and very smart … but she only has two terms in the Assembly. She doesn’t have a huge political record.”

Nor does Hutchison, who is serving his first term in the state senate. But Hutchison, a lawyer and Vegas native, has big backers and a longer track record as a lawyer. He won the endorsement of The Las Vegas Review-Journal.

And it doesn’t hurt that Hutchison, like Reid, is a Mormon with strong ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Sandoval came out really early for him,” Damore said. “To some degree, it was Sandoval stepping up as the most prominent Republican in the state. There’s a bandwagon of support, and they spent a lot of money … Sandoval’s biggest gift to Hutchison is access to donors.”

The majority of Nevada’s Latinos vote Democratic. But the Democrats’ pull on Hispanic voters may be largely diluted because Sandoval is Latino, and his backing of Hutchison could weaken Flores’ edge with that electorate.

“Sandoval hasn’t made that [his Hispanic roots] a big part of his political identity,” Damore said. “He’s a northern guy, and most Latinos are in southern Nevada. At the same time, Lucy hasn’t run outside the Assembly, but she has the advantage of being from the south and being a Democrat.”

But even the mostly Latino culinary union is supporting Sandoval, as Hutchison puts out Spanish-language ads to reach Latino voters, calls for comprehensive immigration reform and supports driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

In a recent national poll by Latino Decisions, an opinion research firm, 53 percent of Hispanics said they felt that Democrats were unwilling to take political risks in support of immigration but still expected Latino support.

“They’re starting to have questions about whether Democrats are standing up for immigration rights,” said Matt Barreto, a co-founder of Latino Decisions. “Latinos are frustrated with the lack of progress on immigration reform … Both parties tend to lose support if they continue to take the Latino vote for granted.”

On top of that, getting Hispanics out to vote is a bigger battle now that the president they helped elect has delayed executive action on immigration reform. The union is sending buses to give casino and hotel workers rides to the polls.

“There are a lot of expectations that the Latino vote won’t be as strong here as it was in the presidential elections,” Damore said.

Yvanna Cancela, the union’s political director agrees that there’s not much excitement over the election. “There is disillusionment on a lot of issues,” she said.

That’s why the union is changing its message. “In the past, we talked about a candidate to rally around. This time, we talk about what it means to have the right to vote,” she said. “It’s more about explaining that if we don’t make our voices heard, we don’t have the tool to complain.”

Things don’t look good for Flores so far. A poll last week showed Hutchison with a double-digit lead, a tough gap to close when his campaign has attracted big donors, including casinos. By mid-October he raised more than $1 million, triple what Flores’ campaign brought in.

The culinary union is endorsing Flores. So is the Latino Victory Project, the national organization co-founded by actress and activist Eva Longoria to build power in the Latino community.

“There are more than 53 million Latinos in the U.S. and only eight statewide Latinos elected,” said Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Project. “We think Lucy could be number nine. She was the first Latino elected to the state assembly.”

Latino values are American values, he added, saying, “Affordable health care, immigration reform, a living wage … Flores understands what it’s like to come from very little.”

Flores dropped out of school, joined gangs and spent time in juvenile detention before turning her life around. She ended up graduating from the University of Southern California and getting a law degree from UNLV. She received death threats after she talked openly about having an abortion at age 16.

“Yes, the governor is a Latino, but we think his position and support behind the candidate [Hutchison] isn’t about Latino values,” Alex said. “It’s really about job security.”

Teams of union workers were going door to door in a mostly white middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood in a southwestern section of Las Vegas, electronic tablets in hand. The data on their handheld devices are updated daily with a log of members of households who have voted and those who haven’t.

“We start at 9, we get a new turf list, and we hit the field and walk door to door until 5:45,” said Iladia Medrano, 37, a Texas-born Mexican-American who has worked four years as a housekeeper at the Hilton Grand Vacations Elara, just off the Strip.

She and about 20 others have been doing this since Sept. 3 and will keep doing it until Election Day. “Some say they’re still undecided,” she said. “We keep going back.”

Ingrid Montenegro, 40, a snack bar attendant at Bally’s Hotel for 12 years, knocks on a door. Dogs bark. No one answers. She knows she’ll have to return and try again.

An exasperated woman opens the door on Tee Pee Lane and makes it clear that she’s tired of the constant visits and piles of fliers. She’s listed on Medrano’s log as a registered Republican. No matter. Medrano calmly tells her, “It won’t stop until you vote.”

All of it seems worthwhile when Montenegro spots two familiar faces entering an early-voting center in a trailer set up in a shopping center parking lot on Fort Apache Road.

“This couple, I remember them,” she said. “I knocked on their door.”