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With supermajority in play, Dem assemblywoman faces Lombardo-backed challenger in swing district

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With supermajority in play, Dem assemblywoman faces Lombardo-backed challenger in swing district

Sep 17, 2024 | 8:05 am ET
By Michael Lyle
With supermajority in play, Dem assemblywoman faces Lombardo-backed challenger in swing district
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Democratic Assemblywoman Shea Backus and Republican challenger David Brog.

With the Democratic supermajority in the Assembly on the line, Democrats and Republicans are eyeing control of Assembly District 37, a seat that has ping-ponged red-blue-red-blue.

Incumbent Democratic Assemblywoman Shea Backus, who will face Republican David Brog in the general election, said though the seat in Clark County currently has a slight Democratic edge, retaining the seat will “still be hard work.”

“I think it’s still competitive,” Backus said. “I only won by about 800 votes the last time, which wasn’t a large margin.”

The race has garnered attention from national groups including the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the official arm of Democratic Party focused on state legislative races.

Backus was one of seven legislative races in Nevada that was spotlighted by the group in June, which she said has helped with fundraising

Backus had raised about $170,000, as of campaign finance reports filed in July. Brog had raised roughly $160,000.

“I think people realize my seat is valuable and because it seems to be a hot seat, I think nationally it has been highlighted,” she said.

Brog didn’t respond to numerous attempts for comment. 

According to his campaign website, he is a Harvard Law graduate who worked as a chief of staff for former Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

Brog was recruited by conservative mega donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson in 2015 to run the Maccabee Task Force, which addresses antisemitism on college campuses.

Backus, an attorney, was first elected to AD 37 in the blue wave of 2018. She ousted Republican Assemblyman Jim Marchant, an election denier who only held the seat one term.

She was then unseated in 2020 by Republican Andy Matthews. 

A combination of campaigning in the pandemic, which made door knocking difficult, in a red-leaning district during a time people were frustrated around the politics of lockdowns all played a role in her loss, Backus said. 

“The campaign looked a lot different that year,” she said. 

She was able to reclaim the seat in 2022 when Matthews didn’t seek re-election and instead successfully ran for state controller. 

It was the first election after the AD37 went through redistricting in 2021 and gained larger Democratic margins.  

Among registered voters, the district currently has 16,327 active Democrats, 15,554 active Republicans and 15,743 active nonpartisan voters.

Backus said though nonpartisans in the district “tend to break left “ it’s still going to be a competitive race. 

If Republicans can flip one Assembly seat they can break Democrats supermajority. 

Gov. Joe Lombardo had made a priority in 2024 of breaking the Democratic supermajority in the Assembly and stopping Democrats from gaining supermajorities in both chambers. Democrats are currently one vote away from a supermajority in the state Senate. Brog is one of a half dozen Republican candidates running for state Assembly with the backing of Better Nevada PAC, a Lombardo-aligned political action committee. 

Two-thirds supermajorities would allow Democrats to override any gubernatorial veto.

“I know the governor has taken personal interest in my race and has allowed his PACs to attack me and campaign for my opponent,” Backus said. 

Brog on his website has accused Backus of voting for “soft-on-crime policies” and for opposing “giving parents a choice in their child’s education.”

Lombardo sought to increase funding for the state’s Opportunity Scholarship private school voucher program during the 2023 Legislative session. His proposal to raise funding from $6.66 million annually to an initial $50 million in the upcoming biennium, before climbing to a projected $500 million in 2031, was stripped from his omnibus education bill.

Though Brog’s website doesn’t identify the criminal justice policies he thinks Backus is “soft” on, it’s likely he’s referring to Assembly Bill 236, which passed in 2019 with bipartisan support.

The bill sought to make modest changes to sentencing policies by lowering some penalties for those convicted of  nonviolent theft and drug crimes in an effort to address, and potentially reduce, Nevada’s growing prison population. 

The final draft of AB 236 was significantly watered down and moved forward after Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which originally opposed the legislation, testified in neutral. 

Lombardo has repeatedly criticized the bill, campaigning against it himself when running for governor in 2020, and unsuccessfully pushed legislation in 2023 to undo aspects of AB 236.

“The whole point of the criminal justice bill was to …make sure the penalties for the crime aligned” with the severity of the offense, Backus said. 

“I always find it interesting (AB 236) is what they attack,” she added “When you really dive into it, the reality is that it was making it more uniform, so you didn’t have someone accused of a violent crime paying penalties that are less than someone doing a misdemeanor crime.”

Backus said that while Lombardo is trying to raise fears about the consequences of Democrats securing veto-proof majorities in the Legislature, Nevadans needn’t be alarmed.

In 2023 Lombardo vetoed a record-breaking 75 bills, including measures that would have provided health care coverage for pregnant undocumented women, reformed the eviction process, offered modest tenant protections, and capped rent at 10% for people older than 62 or who rely on disability insurance benefits for one year.

“When I’m talking to people at the door and listening to their financial struggles I can list off several policies that would have helped those individuals,” if those bill weren’t vetoed, she said.