4 GOP candidates fighting for nod in competitive AD-37

The winner of a four-way Republican primary will move on to face Democratic incumbent Shea Backus in what is one of the most competitive Assembly seats in the state in District 37.

Democrats currently hold a slim voter registration lead of roughly 1,000 in the district. Backus won the seat in 2018 by defeating Republican Jim Marchant by just 135 total votes.

Jacob Deaville

Jacob Deaville is a first-time candidate running for office this year.

Deaville, who was the president of the College Republicans at UNLV, said his goal if elected is “preserving Nevada’s way of life, keeping our taxes low, and making sure we have access to our constitutional rights like the 2nd Amendment.”

Deaville took issue with Gov. Steve Sisolak’s decision to shut down nonessential businesses in the state in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 70,000 Americans as of May 4.

“We limited our economic potential during the crisis because we just panicked and shut everything down,” he said.

When it comes to dealing with the budget shortfalls from that pandemic, he said he’d start with finding wasteful spending, and pointed to cutting back across all departments in the executive branch.

Despite his age, Deaville thinks his experience helping manage a small family construction business gives him an edge over his primary opponents.

“I like to say in this primary I’m the only one who’s had a real job outside of politics for the last five years. I sign checks. I hire and fire people when I need to,” Deaville said. “Although I’m 24-years-old, I’m leaps ahead of my opponents.”

Andy Matthews

Andy Matthews is no stranger to campaigns and politics.

He ran for Congress in 2016 and worked on the unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign of Republican Adam Laxalt in 2018. But now, Matthews is running for a much smaller district, but one where he feels he can have a bigger impact.

“I really believe that is a place where I can enact big change,” Matthew said.

Matthews previously worked as president of the conservative think-tank Nevada Policy Research Institute before resigning from the position in 2015 to run for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District the following year.

He said believes in limited government, and that he’s running because he’s “grown increasingly concerned with this drift towards big government, tax-and-spend, California-style government model.”

When it comes to how to best handle the budget shortfalls created by the pandemic and related economic shutdown, Matthews said raising any kind of taxes would be “the worst thing we can do in this environment.”

Instead, Matthews said lawmakers should work to remove barriers on private businesses in order to get people back to work faster.

He said that his time at NPRI, in which he focused heavily on public policy and state budgets, and his track record on conservative, limited government issues separate him from the primary field.

Michelle Mortensen

As a former KLAS-TV, Channel 8 consumer reporter, Michelle Mortensen believes her experience in helping Nevadans during her journalism career sets her up well to be able to help the state handle the coronavirus fallout.

“Now more than ever we need to elect problem solvers who are solution based,” Mortensen said.

Mortensen, who ran for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District in 2018, said that despite previous efforts by lawmakers and state officials, Nevada has not diversified its income away from gaming and tourism enough, despite a generally low cost-of-living and no state income tax.

“This is a place where businesses should be begging to come,” Mortensen said. “But we need to make improvements to certain areas to make that happen.”

She said the state needs more focus on both higher education and vocational training to bolster Nevada’s educated and skilled workforce, but added that diversifying the state’s economy is not something that will happen overnight, or in a single legislative session.

“We need a long-term plan that is measurable and trackable so that we can make improvements across the board,” Mortensen said. “You can’t just flip the switch and everything’s better. We need a long game, and we need people who are committed to state offices long term.”

Lisa Noeth

Lisa Noeth did not respond to requests for an interview from the Review-Journal.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.