A decorated Air Force combat veteran who lined up support from the Trump wing of the Republican Party will face a Democratic incumbent in a tossup congressional race in Nevada.
The Republican candidate, Sam Peters, won a three-way primary in Nevada’s Fourth District. The seat has been held by Steven Horsford, a Democrat, for the past two terms as well as a single term a decade ago.
Mr. Peters, 47, defeated Annie Black, The Associated Press said Wednesday. Ms. Black is an assemblywoman who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally for Mr. Trump in Washington and was censured by state lawmakers for refusing to wear a mask. Chance Bonaventura, a Republican campaign operative who is chief of staff for a Las Vegas city councilwoman, finished third in Tuesday’s primary.
Extending from the northern part of Las Vegas through central Nevada, the sprawling district is larger in land area than 17 states. While Democrats maintain a more than 10-point voter registration advantage in the district, both national parties are investing heavily in the Las Vegas media market, and the race is rated as a tossup by the Cook Political Report.
Endorsed by the Nevada Republican Party in May, Mr. Peters had played up the support of several leading figures in the party’s Trump wing, including Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who are both from Arizona.
The two congressmen have been the subject of unsuccessful efforts to disqualify them from running for re-election by Mr. Trump’s critics, who say that they fomented election falsehoods that escalated into the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.
Mr. Peters, who earned a Bronze Star for his service during the war in Afghanistan, has also promulgated Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election and last year called on Nevada’s Republican secretary of state to abandon the use of electronic voting machines for the 2022 election.
Making his second run for Congress — two years ago he was the runner-up in the Republican primary — Mr. Peters had vowed to support the completion of a southern border wall that became a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump.
Since the Fourth District’s creation a decade ago, Republicans have won the seat just once, holding it for a single term. The party is seeking to seize upon the sagging approval numbers of President Biden and lingering attention on the personal issues of Mr. Horsford, who has acknowledged having an extramarital affair.
The details came to light after a woman who had been an intern for Harry M. Reid, the former longtime Nevada senator who died last year, revealed in 2020 to The Las Vegas Review-Journal that she was the woman in a podcast titled “Mistress for Congress” that referred to the affair.
In March, Mr. Peters said that Mr. Horsford, who did not have a primary opponent, should not run for re-election.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
