Lombardo's ballot buddies

Lombardo’s ballot buddies. Congressional candidate and campaign fiery train wreck David Flippo might do the unthinkable by being the first Republican to lose Nevada’s second congressional district since it was created after the 1980 census. Meanwhile, Nevada Republican secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant’s fever dreams about a diabolical global cabal secretly controlling elections offer an area complement to Trump’s anti-democracy crusade. In Marchant’s defense, unlike Trump, who knowingly and deliberately tries to undermine public faith in voting as part of his plot to replace democracy with autocracy, Marchant seems to be just another hapless dupe who fell for Trump’s crap.

In the primary election, Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, preferring to share a ballot with less malodorous Republicans, endorsed other people in both races. Flippo & Marchant won their primaries anyway.

The inanity of Flippo and Marchant, pungent though it may be, probably won’t transfer to Lombardo in the minds and noses of independent voters. Presumably voters will compartmentalize.

But the likes of Flippo and Marchant — as well as Trump-endorsed Marty O’Donnell and Carrie Buck in Southern Nevada congressional districts — will likely do little to drive Republican turnout. Republican participation might also suffer if people who voted for Trump and now feel betrayed find Lombardo himself to be — gasp! — uninspiring.

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For the second year in a row, the Current’s Dana Gentry won first place for gaming/tourism reporting in the Nevada Press awards, which were announced over the weekend. April Corbin Girnus won first place for headline writing. And Jeniffer Solis won second place in the coverage of underserved communities category.

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Voter guide’s up. I noted this in Saturday’s newsletter but in case you missed it, the Nevada Current general election voter guide is now live. 

IN NEVADA CURRENT

The shocking thing about the secretary of state race between Cisco Aguilar and election denier/conspiracy theorist Jim Marchant four years ago is not that Aguilar’s margin of victory was so small, but that the smallness of the margin wasn’t all that shocking. Because of All The Other Things over the last ten years. Anyway, now they’re giving it another go. Michael Lyle reports: Nevada’s foremost election denier makes repeat run at state’s top election job 

The race and the candidates are interesting in themselves, but this story also affords us a look at some intriguing aspects of area judicial campaign dynamics. Dana Gentry reports: Long-time judge draws challenger in Clark County Dept. 30

Ever alert (he wrote sarcastically), if I knew former state legislator Pete Goicoechea was on the Nevada Board of Regents, I had forgotten it. He was appointed to fill a vacancy a couple years ago, and now he’s running to keep the seat. April Corbin Girnus reports: Appointed member seeks election to Board of Regents District 8

Ah but surely fraud czar JD will protect us. The U.S. Department of Education’s suspension this year of a comprehensive monitoring process puts billions of K-12 dollars at heightened risk of undetected waste, fraud and abuse, according to a new report by the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office. Via Stateline: K-12 spending, absenteeism programs face risks as feds stop key monitoring, watchdog says

Good Luck