Race is on for competitive House seat

Nevada’s CD3 has history of flipping between parties

THE race for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District got off to an early start last week after former Republican state Treasurer Dan Schwartz announced he would take on freshman Democrat Susie Lee.

It’s not likely Schwartz will be the only Republican to seek the seat. Spanning the bottom part of the state and the suburbs of Summerlin, Green Valley and Boulder City, the

3rd District is Nevada’s closest by registration, and has seesawed back and forth between Republicans and Democrats since it was created in 2001. President Barack Obama won the district twice — easily in 2008; very narrowly in 2012 — and President Donald Trump won it in 2018 by a single percentage point.

Currently, Democrats outnumber Republicans by just more than 7,200 voters in the district, with more than 102,000 nonpartisans. Lee outpolled Republican Danny Tarkanian in 2018 by nearly 26,000 votes in 2018 in a field of seven candidates, including minor party representatives and nonpartisans.

Before that, Democrat Jacky Rosen defeated Tarkanian in 2016 by a much slimmer margin, fewer than 4,000 votes in a four-person race.

Those results show the district is winnable by Republicans and that Lee can’t take anyone for granted.

So does the district’s history: From 2002 to 2008, Republican John Porter held the seat. He was defeated by Democrat Dina Titus in 2008, but she lost to Republican Joe Heck in 2010. Heck represented the district until 2016, when he left the seat to run unsuccessfully for the Senate.

So that’s six terms in Republican hands, three in Democratic.

But Schwartz isn’t your typical Republican. Conservative in some ways, liberal in others, he cuts against the stereotype.

During his single term as treasurer, Schwartz challenged Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval on multiple fronts. He advocated against the

Dan Schwartz