Victoria Seaman wins Las Vegas City Council Ward 2 special election

After campaigning for months ahead of other candidates, former Assemblywoman Victoria Seaman was elected Tuesday night to represent Ward 2 on the Las Vegas City Council.

Seaman garnered more than 39 percent of the 7,540 total votes in the race, according to the Clark County elections department, defeating seven challengers.

“We had an amazing team that worked really hard in getting out our message, and what I’m really thrilled about … the people in Ward 2 are trusting me to represent them,” she told the Review-Journal.

Seaman and the others entered the race officially after Councilman Steve Seroka resigned in early March and the council called a special election to fill the remainder of his term.

But Seaman has been campaigning since the Laborers Union Local 872 launched a recall effort against Seroka in December, upset over his perceived anti-development posture and his opposition to the proposed residential development on the defunct Badlands golf course. The union later endorsed Seaman.

She is also the only candidate who reported donations thus far from a company connected to Badlands developer EHB Cos.

The issue has been politically charged for years, but most candidates have been subdued when commenting on it.

They would suggest that some type of compromise was needed.

When asked whether the head start helped pave the way for victory, Seaman replied that it had “in a way,” but she also noted the difficulty in casting off the impression that she was a union candidate.

“We had to overcome a lot of the, I want to say, false narrative that people put out about me,” she said.

Public relations executive Hilarie Grey, with 31 percent of the vote, and former Assemblywoman Valerie Weber, with 16 percent, trailed Seaman.

During her campaign, Seaman put forward a five-part plan to improve public safety that included increasing police spending and implementing technology in “hot spot” areas for crime. She said on Tuesday that she most lookd forward to tackling public safety from the dais.

Rounding out the field were contract analyst Patsy Brown, attorney Derrick Penney, former real estate services business owner Bruce Feher, homebuilder Richard Plaster and Michael “Mikey” Tomko.

The district, in the western part of the city, encompasses Summerlin.

With Seaman’s election, three members of the seven-member council will be former assemblywomen. Seaman will join Michele Fiore and Olivia Diaz, who was elected Tuesday to represent Ward 3.

Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.