Nevada’s candidates in the 2016 elections will give Silver State voters a show like no other.
There are plenty of interesting races including a candidate for U.S. Senate is making another run, hoping for better luck than in 2010.
Sixty-four candidates had filed with the secretary of state for races that include the Senate, legislative offices, regent posts and state board of education slots by Friday, when the two-week period for filing ended.
In Nye County, 35 candidates filed by the end of Friday, 14 of them running for the three county commission seats up for election this year.
Here is a look at two state races with impact in Pahrump and Nye County.
SENATE RACE
Sharron Angle, who made a famously unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2010, is running for the seat again.
Angle filed late Friday in Carson City as a Republican candidate for the open seat of outgoing U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Angle, a tea party darling, had faced Reid in 2010 after winning the GOP primaries and lost to him. This time around, the GOP’s most prominent candidate is U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., who is also running.
Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Nevada attorney general, is seeking the seat with Reid’s backing.
In all, 18 candidates are running for the Senate seat, one of a handful nationwide that the GOP hopes to gain in the election.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
The State Board of Education, charged with implementing more than two dozen public school reforms that Sandoval pushed through the last legislative session, attracted a total of 10 candidates for four open seats.
Two Sandoval appointees — former Republican Assemblyman Pat Hickey and 37-year-old small business owner Felicia Ortiz — hope to win a full term to the state board. Meanwhile, board vice president Mark Newburn, a 56-year-old computer scientist, will fight for re-election against Len Marciano, who could not be reached for comment.
Sitting board member Victor Wakefield declined to mount an election bid, and instead his seat will offer a three-way fight between Tim Hughes, a CCSD graduate and manager with the New Teacher Project; podiatrist Ernest “Doc” Louk; and small business owner and former state Regent Robert Blakely.
Review-Journal staff writers Bethany Barnes, Sandra Chereb and Neal Morton contributed to this report. Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com.