Late haul puts Sisolak’s campaign war chest at $3.8M
Clark County Commission chairman Steve Sisolak raked in $319,000 in late campaign donations, according to the campaign finance report filed with the Nevada secretary of state’s office on Tuesday.
Most of that total — about $270,000 — came between Nov. 4 and Nov. 8, the final five days of the campaign.
The Fidelity National family of companies gave Sisolak a total of $61,600. Bill Foley, chairman of Fidelity National and owner of the Las Vegas Golden Knights, gave another $10,000.
Sisolak spent about $79,500 in the same filing period of Nov. 4 to Dec. 31, netting about $240,000 towards his growing campaign war chest.
And that coffer is sitting at roughly $3.8 million going forward, according to campaign finance reports going back to 2011. State law allows candidates to carry over unspent funds from previous election cycles into future campaigns.
By contrast, Gov. Brian Sandoval spent roughly $3.5 million of campaign money in 2014 during his bid for re-election and $4.3 million in the more hotly contested 2010 race.
Sisolak was first elected to the county commission in 2008 and won re-election in 2012 and 2016.
Whether his stockpile of campaign cash will be used for a rumored gubernatorial run in 2018 to the replace term-limited Sandoval, or some other possible race, Sisolak hasn’t decided. He told the Review-Journal on Monday that he expects to announce his decision by April.
This isn’t the first time Sisolak’s name had been floated as a potential gubernatorial candidate. Former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and other Democrat party leaders urged Sisolak to run against Sandoval in 2014, but Sisolak declined.
Republicans U.S. Sen. Dean Heller and Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison both recently said they would not run for governor in 2018, leaving the door wide open for Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
Laxalt on Monday reported raising nearly $1.2 million in 2016, with $1.1 million of that coming from mid-October and Christmas. According to Robert Uithoven, a consultant for Laxalt, the attorney general has more than $1.5 million in cash on hand.
But like Sisolak, Laxalt hasn’t committed to a run for governor, and he doesn’t have a timeline for when that decision will be made, Uithoven said.
Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
