After their Nevada primary victories Tuesday, the state's Republican Attorney General Adam Laxalt will battle Democratic Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak for the governor's seat in November, The Hill reported.
Outgoing GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval is limited to two terms at the helm of the Silver State.
The 39-year-old Laxalt positioned himself as an "archconservative," The Hill noted, when he won statewide office four years ago. And he blew away the competition in the Republican gubernatorial primary, winning every county in the state and handily beating treasurer Dan Schwartz with 71 percent of the vote to Schwartz’s 9 percent, the Nevada Independent reported.
Not that he needed it, but Laxalt also got an endorsement from President Donald Trump — via tweet — on Tuesday:
The primary race on the Democratic side was closer, with Sisolak, 64, leading fellow Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani by a 51 to 38 percent margin with 56 percent of the precincts reporting, The Hill said.
Giunchigliani challenged Sisolak’s support for public funding of a new NFL stadium that will host the Raiders, The Hill said, adding that Giunchigliani also got a late endorsement from Hillary Clinton, who's robocall recording went out to Democratic voters over the weekend.
But another influential Democrat — former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid — backed Sisolak, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, and Sisolak had a huge campaign cash advantage over Giunchigliani, spending over $6.5 million in his primary campaign.
Laxalt on Tuesday night called Sisolak a "career politician who has spent decades complaining about the problems and little time getting to work on the solutions" and said November's election is a choice between "real solutions or a radical agenda that would take our unique state the way of California," The Hill said.
After his primary victory, Sisolak said, referencing his primary opponent, "while Chris and I have had our differences, and we aired them out on the public airways, we both agree on one thing: Nevada families cannot afford to let Adam Laxalt become our next governor," the Review-Journal said.
Laxalt at the moment has a significant financial advantage over Sisolak, The Hill said, as Laxalt raised about $6.7 million since the beginning of 2017 and only spent about $3 million.
On the other hand, Clinton beat Trump in Nevada by just over 2 percentage points in 2016, The Hill said, or by about 27,000 votes.
